David Stern, who, as the Hornets’ de-facto owner back in 2011, stepped in and killed the proposed blockbuster trade, argues (in his typically slick, lawyer-y way) that there was never a deal to begin with.

Former NBA commissioner David Stern on 2011 Chris Paul “trade” to Lakers

“I’m going to correct your language: What’s ‘cancellation’? The GM [Dell Demps] was not authorized to make that trade. And acting on behalf of owners, we decided not to make it. I was an owner rep. There was nothing to ‘void.’ It just never got made.

“When you’re the commissioner and you have two teams that are ticked off at you, as in the Lakers and Houston, and the GMs without wanting to be attributed, spend their time trashing you, the wrong impression can be granted. It was one of the few times I decided to just go radio silent and let it play out, and I got killed. So, the answer is: there was never a trade. It was never approved by me as the owner rep.”

Five years ago, then-NBA Commissioner David Stern became the most hated man in Laker Nation after blocking a blockbuster trade for perennial All-Star point guard Chris Paul—and it certainly didn’t help that Paul ended up playing in the same building, for the Clippers.

Kobe and CP3 chatted moments prior to the infamous trade reversal, plotting on how many championships they would win together in Los Angeles.

“You know me. My dream isn’t to win games,” Bryant recalled to ESPN this week. “It’s like, ‘How many of these titles are we going to win [together]?’ Because if we don’t win, we’re a failure.” […] “It was crazy,” Paul told ESPN this week. “It was exciting. We talked about potentially being teammates and all that stuff like that. Then, in the blink of an eye, gone. I knew how competitive he was, and I knew it would be a perfect fit. We just kind of talked about what we’re going to do, how we’re going to scheme to get things done. Unfortunately, it never happened.”

Although both players are admittedly alpha males, Bryant believes they could have coexisted, even if they butted heads from time to time. […] “Butting heads is fine,” Bryant said. “If we didn’t butt heads, we wouldn’t have won championships. There’s different variations of healthy butting heads and not healthy. [Shaquille O’Neal] and I would butt heads in a very unhealthy way, but then we figured out how to make it happen. But I think Chris and I are really two completely different players, and where Shaq and I really butted heads was in the work ethic, because his size and injuries prohibited him from working as hard as he could have been working. So what I used to get on him about was that. That’s what we really disagreed on — the amount of focus and physical attention that it takes to win this damn thing. And so Chris and I would never have these issues.”

Regardless, the potential pairing of the two dominant guards remains one of the biggest what-ifs not only in Bryant’s career and in Lakers history, but also in recent NBA history. […] “Things would’ve been very, very, very different around here,” Bryant said, “with two of the most competitive people the league has ever seen.”

The ex-commish is a lifelong Democrat and has regularly contributed to the party, but says he has no interest in entering political life:

Friends of former NBA Commissioner David Stern are urging him to run for mayor in 2017, now that Mayor de Blasio is looking less likely to be re-elected to a second term. […] “He’s pretty bored,” said one source. “He’s always been interested in politics, and he’s always been interested in running for office.”

Stern is an associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. Of $311,400 Stern has given to Democrats, $5,000 went to President Obama in 2012, and $30,800, the legal max, went to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2011. Not a cent went to Republicans.

“He’s tough as nails. He’s popular with the black community,” said one associate. “New York would be lucky to have him as mayor.” […] Stern, though “flattered,” said he is not interested in running. “I remain a happy Westchester resident and am very busy as a senior adviser to a number of enterprises.”

On January 9 of this year, Roy Tarpley, the former NBA big man who played six seasons for the Dallas Mavericks, passed away at the age of 50. Tarpley had issues with drugs and alcohol throughout his career, as he was booted from the League in 1991 for the drug use, and then again in 1995 for alcohol use after a 1994 reinstatement. But he wasn’t the only one with substance abuse problems. In fact, the 1986 Draft alone was full of cautionary tales.

Of course, there’s the story of Len Bias, a guy who was presumed to be the NBA’s next big star, who could have battled Michael Jordan as the League’s best for years to come. But that never happened. Bias passed away two days after being drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1986 due to a cocaine overdose. Then there was William Bedford, the sixth overall selection by the Phoenix Suns, who had admitted to using drugs as a Detroit Piston and spent a year in rehab. The results of Bedford’s drug use were three arrests for possession, the latter which landed him 10 years in prison. Chris Washburn too, had his major troubles. Wasburn played just two seasons in the League, as three failed drug tests ended his career. He would also land in jail.

The profound sadness of the person ruined by drugs and/or alcohol is one of life’s ultimate tragedies. Not just professional athletes or those in the limelight, but any human being. The loss of life, as in Bias’ case, takes it to a whole new level of sadness. There are, however, the success stories. The ones who go through the same rough times, hit the bottom, and eventually turn their lives around.

Micheal Ray Richardson is no more special than Tarpley, Bias, Bedford, or Washburn or any other athlete who couldn’t curb their drug habit to save their career. Richardson, with his own cocaine troubles, could have ended up just like Tarpley. He could have been that sad story. With him, it could have even been earlier. Thirty years old, maybe he doesn’t even make it to 40. Who knew with Micheal Ray?

His most famous quote about the plight of his Knicks in 1981-82—“The ship be sinkin’”—ironically could have applied to his very own life. But some way, he got out. He was able to remove himself from the drugs, the dangerous life course that plagued him in his prime NBA years.

And so here’s Micheal Ray Richardson, the fourth overall selection in the 1978 NBA Draft, standing at the three-point line at the elbow extended of the gym of the YMCA in London, Ontario, Canada—where’s he’s been coaching the last two years. He shot the ball off of one leg, the ball in perfect flight, banking off the square of the backboard. Doing it again, nets the same result. He’d been shooting around for the last couple minutes, I myself would call it fooling. Never shy of playfully boasting, Richardson turned to his players seated backs to the wall and proclaims, “Ooh, I’m hot now.” This is Richardson’s fun before it’s time for him and his team to “go to work.”

It’s around 10 a.m., before the start of practice for his team—the London Lightning—reigning champions of the two-year-old National Basketball League of Canada. It’s 2013, and later that spring, Richardson’s team would bring home its second straight championship, finishing off a campaign that was nothing short of dominant—33 wins in a 40-game schedule, number one defense in the league, number two offense, leading the league in 11 statistical categories. His Lightning were the definition of quintessential team basketball—not one player exceeding 15 points per game, and nine players averaging double figures.

He doesn’t believe in one-on-one basketball. “Basketball is a team game” was his daily mantra, “basketball is a thinking game” his daily heed to his players. They both are part warning-part preparation tools to his players—if you want to make it in the NBA, you have to have the know-how. “His players” were a mix of young guys trying to make it in the game, fresh out of college and yearning for a chance at the big time, and veterans, guys who have been around in minor league basketball for a long time, true professionals.

One member, Rodney Buford, a former second round pick of the Miami Heat in 1999 who played on the first two Lightning title teams in 2012 and 2013. For the younger guys, Richardson was constantly in their ear, drilling home the “thinking man’s game” point, advising them on what to do, being firm while at the same time being every bit the teacher. His players are all ears to him when he speaks, and for good reason. After all, it’s not every day you get to learn from a former NBA All-Star.

Once upon time, Micheal Ray was known simply as “Sugar.” He was 6 feet 5 inches, and roughly 190 pounds of ill skill. Magic Johnson-like passing, danger in the open floor, at-will scoring, and lockdown, don’t-you-pass-this-ball-in-my-lane-because-I’m-taking-it-the-other-way defense. He could shoot the three. He could post you up. He could go by you and score with a flashy layup. Whatever and however the way, Richardson could flat out ball. Four All-Star teams, two All-Defensive First-Teams, and the first and still the only to lead the NBA in assists and steals in the same season, 10.1 and 3.2 in 1979-80 at the age of 24.

He and Magic Johnson’s combinations of size and skills were the de-facto bridge between the standard point guard of the former NBA and the hybrids of today. In New York and New Jersey, Sugar was a star. But then began his downfall. His last NBA years were marred by stints in and out of rehab to fix a cocaine habit, beginning with what he has admitted was his tenure in Golden State as a Warrior, where he was traded to for Bernard King during the 1982-83 season.

King, of course, would revitalize the Knicks, a stone cold scorer who famously dropped 60 at the Garden on Christmas Day 1984 against Sugar and the Nets. Richardson, on the other hand, fell. He fell hard, hit rock bottom. The back and forth from rehab to the court never ended, and resulted in a permanent ban from the League in 1986, dashing the hopes of what would have been a Hall of Fame career.

Richardson now, 59, a little heavier around the waistline, a tad droopier in the face, is drug free. And from 2011-2014, he was coaching in London. He made a new name for himself as the marquee, most well-known, and best coach in an upstart Canadian League. He wasn’t known as Sugar, but “Micheal” or “Coach”. He did public appearances, was a guest on radio shows, and was active in the community along with the team.

Coaching in Canada, for and in a city of 350,000 people just two hours from where the NBA’s Raptors make their home, Micheal Ray Richardson was a figurative world away from where he was back in the 1980s. If you had asked him as a 24-year-old, where he’d be in 30 years, the last place on his mind I’m sure, would have been in the United States’ northern neighbor coaching minor league basketball. He would have never had thought it.

But here Richardson was, still dominant, just not on the court. His arsenal of skills were no longer blazing speed, stealth-like defense, or a cool jump shot, but skills consisting of a whiteboard, a dry erase marker, and his mind. A mind that had been continuously ripened with basketball knowledge all of Richardson’s adult life, one sharpened by the coaching of Hall of Famers Red Holzman, Hubie Brown, and a soon to be one in Larry Brown.

Richardson’s mind was also finely tuned by 14 years playing overseas, and finally capped by the last decade he’s spent coaching. Richardson was comfortable in London, Ontario, doing what he loved in a hockey hotbed where basketball was an afterthought before the Lightning came into existence and he was named coach.

When he would appear at hockey games for the city’s successful Ontario Hockey League team, more people wouldn’t recognize him than those that did. Did they know that he was a four time All-Star? That he was a flat out stud? That there are highlights of him clean-swiping Jordan, the Doctor, and Bird? No. But maybe that was a good thing. It allowed for Richardson to create a different legacy, a different mark on a different city than the vibrant, bright lights of Manhattan where he began his NBA career.

He wasn’t doing this for the money, he had said, rather because, in his own words, “I’d go crazy.” Maybe that’s true, but there’s no denying that a strong love for the game of basketball had gotten him to this point—the kind of love that drives you to stay involved with the game until you’re on the brink of 60.

“Find the Good.” “Be the Good.”

These sayings are on the rubber bands that adorn Richardson’s wrist. Over the years, finding the good and being the good have been his challenge, what he’s been striving for, what he’s been about achieving. Unlike some former athletes who have fallen on hard times without the rush of the crowd—failing to find that one thing to fill the gap left by the success, fan admiration and worldwide recognition that being a professional athlete may bring—he’s done something positive with his post-playing career.

He’d prefer to be in the NBA with a coaching gig, but that’s not where his life led him, at least to this point. Credibility is what he brought to another minor league, the former NBA All-Star with the type of suits and gator skin shoes no one around here had seen before. He was the city’s face of basketball.

Now, Richardson is gone from London and the National Basketball League of Canada. No more sideline animation, joking with officials, no more juggernaut teams to lead. A “mutual agreement” between himself and management ended his impressive three-year run as coach of the Lightning in June, in what he has recently said will be his last coaching stop. A 101-42 record, with two championships and one win shy of another trip to the Finals in 2014.

It’s evident now that Richardson has found peace in his life. He’s the type of guy people would assume things about, like all the judgments people reach for nowadays regarding people whom they don’t know, but have just heard bad things, or one specific thing, about. With Micheal Ray Richardson, it was always “that guy who got banned from the NBA for drugs.” But there’s more to Micheal Ray than that, aside from the fact that he was one heck of a basketball player. His daughter is a doctor, his kids overseas are doing well. He’s a brother, son, grandfather, just like anyone else. He speaks two languages. You see, things like these are the things that people don’t know, but need to know to understand what he has become, how far he has come as a person.

Over the years, he’s remained close with former commissioner David Stern, and credits Stern for giving him the realization – through banning Richardson from the league – that he had to change. Some guys kick the habit, and some guys just can’t. Richardson did. New York City, Oakland, and New Jersey were the toughest for him, the best times on the court but the toughest times off it. For a guy who averaged 20, 8 and 6 in his prime years, his toughest opponent was probably away from the basketball court.

He had a chance to return to the NBA with the 76ers in the late ‘80s, but conflicting views on a contract prevented it. So Sugar, after dabbling in the CBA with Albany’s Patroons (where he played with current NBA coaches Rick Carlisle and Scott Brooks) went to Europe. The years there—between Italy, Croatia, France—and Denver (as a Nuggets’ team ambassador), then to back to the CBA coaching in Albany and Lawton, Oklahoma, and finally, to Canada, were Sugar’s times to erase the dark past, the years of pain, of having dreams crushed. And in his quest to do so, he succeeded. So, would he change any of it? No, he says. Everything he’s been through has made him who he is today.

Richardson never won an NBA Championship. Never made it to the Naismith Hall of Fame. The NBA Store doesn’t sell versions of his jerseys. He isn’t in front office, ownership, or coaching positions like contemporaries Larry Bird, Magic Johnson or Kevin McHale. Never received NBA head coaching jobs like his Knick teammates Bill Cartwright and Mike Woodson. Instead, he played the game of basketball until he was middle aged, won numerous European championships, won more championships as a coach, in four different countries. He has taken his love of basketball everywhere he’s went, and it has saved him. As of now, he and former teammate Otis Birdsong lead youth basketball camps around the United States. They instill discipline, work ethic, and help youngsters develop the skills and love for the game that made them famous. He’s even taken up substitute teaching—in Oklahoma where he resides—in his spare time away from the game.

In some ways, it’s a miracle he’s made it this far. But having a second chance, the opportunity to turn his life around, Richardson did. He could have ended up like Tarpley. He could have been homeless on the streets like former NBAer Eric Williams is now, he could have been still an addict, have never recovered, never gone on to play basketball a day after February 24, 1986, the date of his last NBA game. The guy who fell just as hard as his NBA superstardom rose, made it back. A kid born in Texas, raised in Colorado, who went to college in Montana, drafted to a team from New York City, then across the country to California, then back to the East Coast to New Jersey, then Albany, and then three European countries, back to Colorado, back to Albany, and Oklahoma and Canada? And went through rehab numerous times a cocaine addict and was banned from the NBA? An improbable journey. But Richardson made it.

The Whatever Happened to Micheal Ray? documentary done by TNT in 2000 was the update on him at the time, the answer to the question of what had become of one of the NBA’s all-time super talents after a drug ban and a decade-plus overseas. Since that time, there has been continued growth in the man that is Micheal Ray, more successes, more defying the odds that were stacked so not in his favor at one point in time. In the fall of 2014, the MSG Network aired a special in their Beginnings series, about the life of Richardson—from where he started, to the present. The 30 minutes watched was well spent, Sugar in his own words, discussing his childhood, the love of his family, and the special bond he had with his mother. It was Micheal to the core. The summation of Richardson’s journey, perseverance as a man, can also be cleared up in a mere few words.

“Here I am. Still able to run full with all the drug problems I had. Crazy isn’t it?” That was direct from Richardson, relayed to former NBA columnist Peter Vecsey, about his current physical state, in comparison to other former players Richardson sees who have trouble walking and other physical ailments. For a guy like Micheal Ray, it is crazy indeed. At 59 going on 60, it is clear what he’s done with his life.

Micheal Ray Richardson’s ship is no longer sinking. He’s found the good.

Jake Carapella is a graduate of Western University and was a statistician and scout for the London Lightning of NBL Canada for three years. Follow him on Twitter @Jsports22.

Most notably during the NBA Playoffs, pregame shots of arriving players and televised postgame press conferences have been turned into hyper-competitive fashion shows. This, according to Miami Heat superstar guard

“It was like, ‘OK, now we got to really dress up and we can’t just throw on a sweat suit,'” he said. “Then it became a competition amongst guys and now you really got into it more and you started to really understand the clothes you put on your body, the materials you’re starting to wear, so then you become even more of a fan of it.”

“Obviously sometimes we push the envelope, and I think it’s because we’re athletes,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “We’re not looked at as guys who should wear certain things. Being flamboyant is being OK.”

“My lady has her style and I love her elegance that she brings to it,” he said. “And I think I bring a little spice to it. Maybe that’s one of the perks of dating someone nine years younger, bring a little hipster to it!” […] Wade, 32, and [actress Gabrielle Union ], the 41-year-old “Being Mary Jane” star just returned from their two-week honeymoon in the Maldives, Tanzania and the Seychelles.

A compilation of the NBA’s best images from the past seven days. From the newest rookie faces to the respected Hall of Fame inductees—with a little Kobe, Varejao and Hardaway Jr in between—scroll through this week’s NBA photos above.

“You can’t even do justice to everything that everybody has done,” Stern said in a phone interview. “All you can do is focus on small chunks of it, but it’s great fun to contemplate how the NBA family has pulled together to be at a place where our players are now at the top of the celebrity period. […] Pretty, pretty amazing and great.”

Stern will be enshrined Friday in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, part of a 2014 class that includes former players Alonzo Mourning and Mitch Richmond, along with NCAA championship-winning coaches Nolan Richardson and Gary Williams.

Stern ended his run as commissioner after exactly 30 years on Feb. 1 — he won’t say retired, because he’s still working — and once thought he would wait five years for induction, same as players. Officials from the NBA and Hall of Fame persuaded him otherwise, and nobody is arguing that he belongs immediately. […] “To me, it’s a very important award, a recognition by your peers in a sport where you spent your adult life working,” he said, adding it’s “at the top of the chart in terms of the way it makes you feel and the recognition of it.”

We weren’t the only ones excited about SLAMonline’s redesign. We caught a bunch of past and present players (and even the former commish) checking out our new look. See for yourself by scrolling through the images above. (OK, fine: It’s just weirdly fun to look at NBA players looking at computers.)

A special committee of six NBA owners unanimously recommended Sterling’s removal in September 1982. Created after Sterling’s aborted attempt to relocate the franchise from San Diego to Los Angeles, the committee grew concerned about late payments by the Clippers to players, hotels, program printers and others. The NBA had previously sued Sterling to block that move.

But much of the controversy revolved around an audiotape.

Yes, 32 years before another recording led NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to ban Sterling for life and take steps to force the team’s sale, the owner’s words created trouble.

According to stories in The Times detailing the matter, the special committee focused on comments Sterling made to a luncheon earlier that year insisting the Clippers needed to finish last so they could draft a player like Ralph Sampson.

Sterling said at the time that the remarks were misunderstood. The NBA, however, fined him $10,000 and, when the committee met, it listened to recordings of the luncheon.

An NBA source went so far as to tell The Times: “He’s as good as gone.”

“The owners seem shocked,” Times reporter Randy Harvey wrote in September 1982, “he did not turn out to be the real thing. Perhaps they will scratch the surface the next time they need a new owner.”

The next step was for the league’s advisory and finance committee to consider terminating Sterling’s ownership. That’s the same committee meeting Thursday to discuss the same issue.

But eight days after the committee’s vote in 1982 Sterling announced his desire to sell the team. That bought time and the league’s effort to remove Sterling eventually lost steam.

By February 1983, then-NBA president David Stern described the franchise as being operated in a “first-class” fashion and said the league didn’t expect to further pursue the investigation.

This year’s list includes Immaculata University’s AIAW National Championship teams of the early 1970s, seven-time NBA All-Star Alonzo Mourning, 1994 Naismith, NABC Coach of the Year Nolan Richardson, six-time NBA All-Star Mitch Richmond and NCAA National Championship coach Gary Williams. They join the five directly elected members who were announced during the NBA All-Star Weekend in February by distinguished committees focused on preserving all areas from the game of basketball. They include Bob Leonard voted in from the American Basketball Association (ABA) Committee, Nat Clifton from the Early African American Pioneers Committee, Sarunas Marciulionis from the International Committee, Guy Rodgers from the Veterans Committee and David Stern from the Contributor Direct Election Committee.

“It is an honor for us to welcome this highly-esteemed Class of 2014 into the Basketball Hall of Fame,” said John L. Doleva, President and CEO of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. “Each inductee has made great strides in the sport and serves as an inspiration to many. We look forward to honoring each of these well-deserving members during the Enshrinement Ceremonies.”

To be elected, finalists required 18 of 24 votes from the Honors Committee for election into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The addition of the direct elect committees were incorporated into the election process to maintain a strong focus on keeping history on the forefront of the voting procedures and to preserve a balance between two eras of basketball.

“This 2014 class is a highly distinguished group of individuals who represent many decades and eras of basketball,” said Jerry Colangelo, Chairman of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Board. “Each year, we follow the tradition of recognizing those who have been leaders in the game of basketball, and this is a special year with a remarkable group of inductees.”

As I write this, the Seahawks are heading to the Super Bowl, with brash cornerback Richard Sherman’s name on everyone’s lips. As I write this, people are dancing in Seattle’s streets, in full fever over being at the center of the sports universe. As I write this, Kevin Durant is living the life of having the inside-track on the 2014 NBA MVP award, splashing shots from every angle and dropping threes like he is throwing oranges in a garbage dumpster. He is doing it for a team without their second best player in fellow All-Star Russell Westbrook. He is also doing it for a team with a name that sounds like it was ripped from a roller derby squad and in a city that by any conceivable metric should not be home to an NBA team.

Yes, all love to Oklahoma City for making it work and supporting the Thunder. But I’d love to see what the crowds look like once Durant has moved on to another team or retirement. This is a team that has become must-see television though the individual greatness of one 6-9 three-point god, who plays like an elastic Dirk Nowitzki with a mean streak. The power of Durant in 2014 forces me to wonder what the sports world would be like right now if Clay Bennett had never ripped the Sonics out of Seattle and dropped them in the heart of his wife’s family’s fortune in Oklahoma City. Imagine the Seahawks in the Super Bowl while Durant is making three-pointers look as easy as a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. I wish the Sonics were around right now so much that I’m walking around with a Slick Watts headband on in protest that the world is not how I want it to be.

Much has been written about the fact that Durant, a basketball ascetic, likes Oklahoma City because there are “no distractions” and he can just concentrate on playing ball. Another way to put this is that he likes Oklahoma City because it limits the possibilities for a 25-year-old with cash in hand to get into any in-season mischief. But the man and the city are a mismatch. Seattle fits KD like hand in glove. They would have been inseparable like Baltimore and Cal Ripken Jr. Durant himself said in 2010 after the move was made, “I miss Seattle a lot. It was my first city that I lived in on my own. It was a great city to play for. It was unfortunate for the fans what happened, but it’s time to move on. I’m sure they’ve moved on. But in the back of my mind, I still have a thing for Seattle and always am going to remember what they’ve done for me.”

Durant loved Seattle because, frankly, it’s lovable, with a hoop culture that is second to none. It is also a city, however, that is progressive enough that it refused to accede to the threats of Clay Bennett and David Stern. They would not hand over $300 million in tax money to finance a new arena. Schools were being closed because of underfunding, homelessness was on the rise, and for too many people in Sea-town, giving a billionaire a few hundred million more was an obscenity.

I spoke with Jesse Hagopian, a teacher in Seattle who led a nationally recognized boycott of the state’s standardized testing regime. He is currently running to be the youngest teacher’s union president in a major American city. Jesse said to me, “I grew up with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp and we miss the Sonics every day. The thought taking my own little kids to see the Durantula gives me chills just to think about it. But in Seattle we had just paid for a new baseball stadium and just paid for a new football stadium. We were sick and tired of being held up when there were so many needs across the city. I personally wish the state had just taken over the team like the Packers. Maybe next time….”

In 2014, the sports world should have belonged to Seattle and it does not. Now as the NBA Commissioner begins his slow stroll toward retirement and the tributes begin, we should never forget that the absence of Durant in a Sonics uniform will always be the most shameful part of the Stern legacy.

With Adam Silver set to take over for David Stern as the NBA’s new commissioner on February 1, the League had to decide who would be next in line for the job. Today, the NBA Board of Governors announced that person will be Mark Tatum. From the NBA:

The NBA Board of Governors has unanimously approved the appointment of Mark Tatum to NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer, the NBA announced today. A 15-year veteran of the league office, Tatum will assume his new role on February 1, 2014, when current NBA Deputy Commissioner and COO Adam Silver becomes NBA Commissioner…

“Mark Tatum’s appointment as NBA Deputy Commissioner is recognition of the confidence our owners and teams have in his leadership ability and track record of success,” said Silver. “As Deputy Commissioner and COO, Mark will use his extensive industry relationships and knowledge of our game to help guide and grow our league.”

In his role as Executive Vice President, Global Marketing Partnerships, Tatum oversaw the NBA’s marketing partnerships business across the NBA, WNBA, NBA Development League, and USA Basketball. He also was responsible for managing the league’s media sales, including sales of NBA TV, NBA.com, and other NBA-controlled media, along with leading the sales relationships with the league’s TV partners. Tatum joined the NBA in 1999.

Prior to joining the NBA, Tatum held marketing and sales positions with The Clorox Company, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and Major League Baseball. Tatum received a bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing from Cornell University and is a graduate of Harvard Business School.

With David Stern set to retire, we figured the time was right to dig into our archives and post an interview SLAM OGs Russ Bengtson and Lang Whitaker conducted with The Commish back in 2004. Enjoy!—Ed.

It was the summer of 1981, and the NBA was in trouble. Attendance was terrible, CBS was showing NBA Finals games on late-night tape delay, and 16 of the League’s 23 teams were losing money. Things started turning around two years later, when David Stern was hired as the fourth commissioner in NBA history. Stern aggressively marketed the League as equal parts sports and entertainment, Michael Jordan came along shortly thereafter, and things exploded. Twenty years later, the NBA is now the most popular sports league worldwide, with rabid fans from China to Yugoslavia to Brazil. All of that traces back to David Stern.

We caught up with Stern on a crisp fall day in his 15th floor corner office in midtown Manhattan, with no subject off limits. Even though he’s been around for two decades and SLAM has been around one, this was our first meeting. Hopefully it won’t be the last.

SLAM: First things first—do you read SLAM?

David Stern: I do. I’m a SLAM subscriber. I keep it in a brown paper bag. (Everyone laughs)

SLAM: Can you pinpoint one thing you’re most proud of over the last two decades?

DS: When we started out, this was a league that was supposed to be too black, that could never be accepted by America, blah, blah, blah. And we proved the skeptics wrong there. I’m also proud of the way the League and the players responded to Magic’s announcement that he was HIV positive, and I’m very proud of the impact our League had in changing attitudes about HIV. And I’m proud of the fact that NBA coaches get fired and hired, and people don’t mention race. That sort of puts the NBA in the right place. I think we can be proud of our players, coaches and general managers. It’s fun to be in a League where the overwhelming focus is on winning.

SLAM: So what do you think the biggest challenge facing the League is right now?

DS: Getting people to understand that our 400-plus players shouldn’t be defined by the weakest moments of about 15 of them. This summer, Bob Lanier led a delegation to South Africa, where we worked with 100 kids from 21 nations. We visited Kuwait City and Baghdad, just to let the troops know that people here were thinking about them. We had a camp in Treviso, Italy, called Basketball Without Borders, where our Eastern European players pitched in. All of our players gathered for exhibition games and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for their favorite charities. But if you ask the average fan how we spent our summer, the police blotter would define it. And it’s not fair for the 400-plus people who do so much.

SLAM: What about the WNBA? Do you get tired of the general attitude it seems to get from most of the media?

DS: Yes, yes. The media has a bad attitude, you know? (Everyone laughs) People ask me, “The WNBA lost money, right?” And I say, Yeah, but not as much as the NBA lost. Not as much as the NHL lost. Not as much as Major League Baseball is losing. We’re making plans for not only Year 8 of the WNBA, but also Years 9, 10 and 11. People used to have the same attitude about the NBA, but no one remembers. The NBA was an offshoot of the NHL. Owners of NHL teams that owned arenas decided they’d do something with this other sport where people ran around in their underwear fighting over a sphere. They figured they’d get people into the building. And here we are. I think the WNBA will one day be to the NBA as women’s tennis is to men’s tennis. A different game, but played by extraordinary athletes and very much appreciated.

SLAM: Not knowing very much about the financial side of things, how much money does the NBA lose?

DS: It happens with some regularity to some of our teams, depending upon the situation. We’re not asking for any sympathy or passing a hat, because businesses can absorb losses. Their share price sometimes continue to go up even though their cash flow is negative, and in some ways that’s what we think about the WNBA. We’re investing very modest sums, and overall we’re very happy with it.

SLAM: Is there an answer to that loss, or is that just something you have to accept as a matter of course?

DS: No—it’s an investment. You’re investing in a product. The losses are very modest. To have a league, some teams make money, some teams lose money. We now have a women’s league that’s going into its eighth season, and the general predictions were, it wouldn’t last a year. It’s here, it’s got its fans. The quality of the game…I’ll tell you what: If you saw the Final between the Shock and the Sparks, it was a very physical and fiercely contested game, which just demonstrates that the talent level is going up.

SLAM: People have talked about an age limit for the NBA Draft. I know you’ve said you’re in favor of that.

DS: Yeah, well…I’m losing steam.

SLAM: What’s slowing you down?

DS: The flow of time and the general view that despite what I think is a good idea, I look around [at tennis] and Andy Roddick is about to be ranked number one, and I haven’t looked at his college credentials lately, any more than I looked at Agassi’s or Sampras’. So…we’ll see. I still think it would be a good idea. If we had our druthers, we’d tell kids to stay in school. I’ve been reading in the clips that Omar Cook might be sticking with Indiana, and for me, that’s exactly what the Developmental League is about: trying to provide a safety net for somebody who is a nice young man, very talented, but made a mistake coming out early. What’s happening is extraordinarily athletically talented kids are going to come out, but they’re not going to be [NBA] basketball players, even though their friends and their agents are telling them that. That’s a problem.

SLAM: And it seems like rarely these days does a guy like Antonio Davis go to Europe, become a good player and come back.

DS: And then you read about Lenny Cooke and Omar Cook, Leon Smith…you know, that’s not a great activity for us to be associated with.

SLAM: The Players Association says you don’t want kids coming out because the League wants to achieve cost certainty—the younger the kid is, the more big-money contracts he’ll get. They’re getting on the clock faster.

DS: The average playing life in the NBA is five years. I assure you, if that was the issue, we would negotiate around that as we negotiate around everything. But that’s not even a driving issue. Although I can understand why a player or an agent might say, “Come out, you’ll get more contracts.” That’s fine. But think about the numbers of kids who have it whispered in their ears that they should come out who shouldn’t. That’s what we’re talking about.

SLAM: What exactly is your job? Are you a representative of the owners?

DS: I get to talk to a couple of rubes like you. Here we are, just a couple of guys hanging out…No, I see myself as the CEO. I’m hired by the owners, I can be fired by the owners. But unless the employees of the company are doing well and are happy, unless the consumers are happy, and unless the shareholders are happy, then the CEO is doing a lousy job. And in a certain way, because I’m the CEO and because we have the labor deal that we do, I work for the players, although I don’t report to them. Really, it’s a good system that causes us to have a joined or a community interest.

SLAM: Last year the League had a series of ads with Elvis, Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones. None of the players we talked to felt those ads were representative of them at all.

DS: They’re not. We’ve got SLAM. That’s why I read SLAM. There’s a broad array of folks that are interested in our game. And our youngsters know that at our All-Star Weekends over the last three years—and I can’t name all the names—but everyone from Mary J. Blige to Alicia Keyes to P. Diddy, Britney Spears, LL Cool J…we have everybody at our games. It’s our job to not only nurture that fan base, but to remind a somewhat older base that the NBA is relevant to them as well. So even though our players might not remember Frank Sinatra or the Rolling Stones or Elvis Presley, we have many fans who do. So we’re constantly balancing there.

SLAM: Moving into the real post-Michael Jordan era—you had the temporary one—do you feel that things are in good hands?

DS: I couldn’t be more enthused about any season. This is 2003, and we haven’t been offshore in two years. So we’re coming off of a preseason in Mexico City, Paris, Barcelona, Puerto Rico; I’m getting ready to go to Tokyo to see a game. NBA TV is being launched not just here but on a global basis. Ten coaches have moved places. Payton and Malone are in L.A. Free agent signings have gone on in places like Minnesota and even San Antonio, which seems, if it’s possible, to be loaded even more than last year. And then you’ve got the rookies. And then you’ve got the continuing flow of international players, making us entirely interesting to a global audience. This is going to be a very exciting year. When you think about trades, free agents, new coaches, rookies, international …it just seems to have coalesced this year into something bigger than it has before.

SLAM: Will you let us be in charge of the Slam Dunk Contest next year?

DS: Got any ideas? Send me a memo.

SLAM: We definitely would’ve told you that the wheel was a bad idea.

DS: We’re trying to make it interesting. And no matter what I do and no matter when I leave and I think, This is the last year, we go home and get the television ratings, and it always peaks for the Slam Dunk. So send us a memo. Also, I think the three-on-three is…tenuous, shall we say. So we have to come up with a better idea than that. The skills competition was pretty fun.

SLAM: The key was, good people were in it.

DS: Right—that was a real skills competition, not the Levitra ad where the guy throws the football through the tire.

SLAM: Over the summer, Mark Cuban talked about the Kobe case and said business-wise it would be good for the NBA. You called his comments “unseemly and misinformed.”

DS: To the extent that he was quoted as saying it was “good” for the NBA. I can tell you it’s not good for anybody.

SLAM: You don’t think there’ll be a ratings bump when Kobe plays on TV?

DS: I’m not sure. The fact that there’s a media frenzy that wants to talk about a rape case is good for the NBA in the long run? I don’t think so. I don’t buy that. I think that ratings might be up because Kobe’s playing with Karl Malone and Gary Payton and the Lakers are winning and Shaq’s lost weight and is feeling good. If not, ratings are going to be down. The marketplace is very demanding.

SLAM: Do you own any throwback jerseys?

DS: If I did I wouldn’t wear them, so I wouldn’t tell you about them anyway. I own jerseys, but they’re not throwback jerseys—I’ve owned them for 20 years and now they’re throwbacks. I’ve got throwback ties. I don’t have throwback suits. My wife dresses me.

SLAM: What’s in that back room at the Draft—you know how you announce the pick and then go back through that door?

DS: You guys don’t know? We’ve got a great spread back there. Food! Actually, what we do officially is entertain people. Generally we horse around and behave like children.

SLAM: Who was the first person you shook hands with at your first Draft?

DS: I have no…oh, you know, I remember the dinner. I think the Draft was at the Garden, and we were at an Italian restaurant with a low roof, and I was with Scotty Stirling. I met Hakeem Olajuwon, his mom and his brother.

SLAM: What does the future hold for you? What do you do after being commissioner?

DS: I was thinking of becoming a reporter for SLAM. I was thinking about that. I want to get into the basketball cognoscenti. Because to me, that’s where it’s at.

SLAM: Do you have a business card that says “Commissioner” on it?

DS: I do, I do. (Fishes around in his wallet, pulls a card out, hands it over)

SLAM: Who do you give it to?

DS: My mom used to give them out to her friends. Seriously, I use it when I have meetings. The other side is in Japanese, so I can use it for business meetings in Japan.

SLAM: We promise we’ll be good with it.

DS: That’s OK, we have a file on you guys.

SLAM: We figured there might be trap doors under the seats or something.

One of the great successes in a 30-year career as NBA Commissioner, is David Stern’s expansion of the game into global markets. There’s a limit, though, according to Dallas Mavericks team owner Mark Cuban. Stern’s dream of having an NBA team in Europe is just that – a dream. Per the Dallas Morning News:

Mark Cuban touched on that possibility before Wednesday’s game. And until somebody actually invents a teleporter, it’s not likely to happen, Cuban said.

But that doesn’t mean the NBA’s presence overseas isn’t going to grow.

“I could see us licensing and maybe playing a World Cup with winners from overseas to try to replace the Olympics,” he said. “Just like hockey’s looking at it right now. But unless they bring back the Concordes and they change the schedule to give us a little more time, it’s going to be really difficult for teams to travel back and forth. It’s tough just doing one game, much less a whole schedule.”

This is David Stern’s last week on the job, and with Adam Silver about to take over the big job, the League’s best player would like to help Silver grow the NBA. LeBron James says he has fresh ideas to push the Association forward. Per ESPN:

“Hopefully I can sit down with the commish and just throw out some ideas where I hope the league can be better,” James said as the Heat prepared to face the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night. “Hopefully he has some ideas for me.”

Silver will take over for David Stern on Saturday, the first time in 30 years the league has had a change in leadership. James slowly has been getting more personally involved in league business. He attended negotiating sessions during the 2011 lockout, and last year he considered running for president of the players’ union before deciding against it.

“It’s not a major change, but the game can always be bigger,” James said. “There’s a lot of people who love the game who can’t watch the game, so hopefully we can [expand it].”

“The opportunities I’ve had to be around him as he’s been the assistant commish, he’s been easy to talk to,” James said. “He understands the business and someone who understands what the game means to everyone — the whole pie. Best of luck to him; hopefully he can get 30 years in, too.”

“David has been great,” James said. “Obviously we had a lockout, but at the end of the day the players want more and the owners want more and we all want more. You can’t knock what David has done. He came in in the ’80s and built the game into what it is today. Can you name a commissioner who is better than him and what he’s done? I don’t think so.”

Forbes released a detailed look at the value of each NBA franchise this week, asserting that almost every team is making a profit and generally performing better than before the 2011 lockout. The New York Knicks are considered the league’s most valuable team, with a worth of 1.4 billion dollars and an operating profit of $96 million. The Lakers and Bulls are also thought to be worth at least a billion dollars. On the other end of the spectrum are the Bucks, who did turn a profit but are worth the least amount of money ($405 million).

In addition to making a valuation of each franchise, Forbes describes NBA Commissioner David Stern’s role in helping the League grow to what it is today:

“When David Stern steps down from his role as NBA commissioner on Feb. 1 after 30 years in the top job, he’ll leave the league almost unrecognizable compared with the one he inherited in February 1984. Once a struggling also-ran to other professional sports, the National Basketball Association is now a global money machine, thanks in large part to Stern’s leadership on labor relations, drug testing, team expansion and other issues. NBA revenues, which were $118 million for the 1982-83 season, hit $4.6 billion for the league’s 30 teams last year. The Sacramento Kings—sold for $10.5 million in 1983—changed hands in May for $534 million. Playoff games were shown on tape-delay in the early 1980s, but are now broadcast live in 215 countries around the globe.

The average NBA franchise is worth (equity plus debt) $634 million, up 25% over last year. Collectively the 30 teams are worth $19 billion versus $400 million in 1984 when there were 23 teams. Stern has served his owners well. Under his watch, every team built or completely renovated their home arena leading to total gate receipts of $1.3 billion last season. He pushed through a salary cap starting with the 1984-85 season that helped owners turn a profit and level the playing field (the cap has increased from $3.6 million to $58.7 million this season). With some help from Nike, Stern’s idea of marketing of individual star players—Jordan, Kobe, LeBron—created global celebrities and fueled interest in the game.”

As NBA commissioner David Stern prepares to step down on Feb.1, he leaves the League in very good financial shape after 30 years on the job. The NBA’s bottom line, in fact, has never looked better. With an estimated value of $1.4 billion, the New York Knicks continue to be the richest team in pro hoops (followed by the Los Angeles Lakers at $1.35 billion, up 35% from last year.) Per Forbes:

NBA revenues, which were $118 million for the 1982-83 season, hit $4.6 billion for the league’s 30 teams last year. The Sacramento Kings—sold for $10.5 million in 1983—changed hands in May for $534 million. Playoff games were shown on tape-delay in the early 1980s, but are now broadcast live in 215 countries around the globe.

The average NBA franchise is worth (equity plus debt) $634 million, up 25% over last year. Collectively the 30 teams are worth $19 billion versus $400 million in 1984 when there were 23 teams. Stern has served his owners well. Under his watch, every team built or completely renovated their home arena leading to total gate receipts of $1.3 billion last season. He pushed through a salary cap starting with the 1984-85 season that helped owners turn a profit and level the playing field (the cap has increased from $3.6 million to $58.7 million this season). With some help from Nike, Stern’s idea of marketing of individual star players—Jordan, Kobe, LeBron—created global celebrities and fueled interest in the game.

No team has benefited more than the New York Knicks. The NBA’s most valuable team for a second straight year, the Knicks are now worth $1.4 billion, up 27% from a year ago. A three-year, $1 billion renovation of Madison Square Garden pushed the Knicks’ revenue to $287 million, net of revenue sharing, last season. The Knicks’ average TV rating on the MSG Network was 3.1, up 71% from the previous season, as the team made the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2000 (both the Knicks and MSG are owned by publicly traded Madison Square Garden Company). The playoff run and arena renovation helped the Knicks generate operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $96 million–a record for an NBA franchise.

Profitability was up across the board in the NBA’s first full season since the 2011 lockout was settled. Operating income doubled to an average of $23.7 million, the highest since Forbes began calculating NBA valuations in 1998. The new collective bargaining agreement reduced the players’ cut of revenues from 57% to 50%. The CBA also boosted revenue sharing from the NBA’s haves to have-nots. Only $55 million changed hands under the prior CBA, but low revenue teams were supplemented nearly $120 million last season mainly from the league’s top revenue clubs. Close to $200 million is expected to change hands this season based on last season’s financials. Former perennial money losers like the Charlotte Bobcats, Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies all turned a profit last season thanks to at least $10 million each in revenue sharing. Overall, only four teams lost money on an operating basis by our count.

Franchise values got a boost from cost controls in the new CBA, as well as the much-anticipated next round of TV contracts. The current pacts withESPN /ABC and TNT are worth an average of $930 million annually and expire after the 2015-16 season. Most big sports TV rights packages are locked up into the next decade and the NBA is sitting in the catbird seat as the last major opportunity for new sports channels, Fox Sports 1 and NBC Sports Network, to make a splash. ESPN is a slam dunk to retain rights to NBA games thanks to the sport’s importance to the network and its huge affiliate fees war chest. Speculation is swirling that the NBA might follow the NFL’s model and carve out a package for a third rightsholder to spread the wealth and boost the total value of the rights. A deal is expected in the next few months for at least double the current agreement.

David Stern is set to officially hang it up on February 1, which meant there was one more order of business to take care of before he bounces for good: Penalizing Mavs owner Mark Cuban one last time. Per ESPN Dallas:

The NBA office granted Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s wish, fining him one more time before commissioner David Stern’s Feb. 1 retirement.

Stern announced Saturday that Cuban has been fined $100,000 for confronting officials on the court and directing inappropriate language toward them at the conclusion of the Mavs’ 129-127 loss Wednesday night to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Cuban took to Twitter in response to the fine:

I couldnt let the commish go without a proper farewell. Its been a fun 14 years of trying to create change and donating to the donut fund !

Dennis Rodman has named a team of former NBA players to play an exhibition basketball game in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Rodman will lead the team that includes former NBA All-Stars Kenny Anderson, Cliff Robinson, and Vin Baker. Craig Hodges, Doug Christie and Charles D. Smith are on the team, as well. They will play against a top North Korean senior national team on Wednesday, marking Kim Jong Un’s birthday.

Rodman calls the game his version of “basketball diplomacy.”

“My previous travels have allowed me to feel the enthusiasm and warmth of fans,” Rodman said. “The positive memories and smiles on the faces of the children and families are a testament to the great efforts we have put into fulfilling our mission wherever we go voiding any politics. We are all looking forward to arriving in Pyongyang, meeting the citizens, visiting various charities and using the opportunity to develop new relationships that result in our annual return.”

Stern on Rodman/North Korea game: "Although sports in many instances can be helpful in bridging cultural divides, this is not one of them.”

According to Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, the L will consider abolishing divisions in the Eastern and Western Conferences. Per the AP: “Silver said during an interview Monday on the SiriusXM NBA Radio channel that he has discussed ‘whether divisions have outlived their usefulness’ and that he believes the competition committee ‘will be taking a fresh look at” the role of divisions when it next meets. The NBA has six divisions, three in each conference, and the winners are guaranteed no worse than a No. 4 seed in the playoffs. The Boston Celtics would currently be No. 4 as the Atlantic winner, even with a 10-12 record that is only sixth-best in the Eastern Conference and would be 13th, out of the playoffs entirely, in the stronger West.”

While talking to a group of Los Angeles Lakers season ticket holders, GM Mitch Kupchak touched on Kobe Bryant’s recovery from Achilles surgery, and admitted that David Stern’s infamous veto of the 2011 trade for Chris Paul remains a very sore point. Per the LA Times: “Kupchak acknowledged the franchise is preparing for the time after Bryant is gone. ‘He’s not going to be here forever. Just like Elgin [Baylor] wasn’t here forever, Jerry [West] wasn’t here forever — Wilt [Chamberlain], Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar and] Magic [Johnson],’ said Kupchak. ‘Everything runs its cycle.’ The difficult task ahead for Kupchak will be rebuilding under the difficult rules of the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. ‘The [CBA] really made a concerted effort to level the playing field in terms of taxes, the ability to sign free agents, the [salary] cap, the exceptions,’ Kupchak said. ‘We’re starting to see, slowly, some of the effects of that agreement. This is something that all the smaller-market teams in the NBA wanted.’ Kupchak said he expects smaller-market teams to benefit in the standings. ‘The owners … want, as much as possible, to level the playing field,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure we’ll be able to have three superstars and dominate for eight or 10 years. I just don’t think the new rules will allow that.’ Kupchak also gave credit to Commissioner David Stern, who is retiring in February, for globalizing the NBA game. ‘He’s done so much for this [league with] his vision,’ Kupchak said. ‘… We’ll miss him, with the exception of one moment.’ In 2011, Kupchak had agreed to a trade with the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) and Houston Rockets to bring Chris Paul to the Lakers — but Stern stepped in as temporary owner of the Hornets to stop the blockbuster deal. ‘Have you forgiven him for that one moment?’ asked Lakers broadcaster Stu Lantz, moderating the event. ‘No I haven’t,’ Kupchak answered.”

As expected, NBA owners unanimously voted on Wednesday to change the NBA Finals format from 2-3-2 to 2-2-1-1-1. This change will take effect in June. Per the AP: “The league will add an extra day between Games 6 and 7. The current format was instituted in 1985 in part to ease the amount of cross-country travel with the Celtics and Lakers frequently meeting for the championship. But critics felt it gave an edge to the lower-seeded team. ”There certainly was a perception … it was unfair to the team that had the better record, that it was then playing the pivotal Game 5 on the road. So this obviously moves that game back to giving home-court advantage to the team with the better record if it’s a 2-2 series,” Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said. The higher-seeded team will host Games 1, 2, 5 and 7. The lower seed gets Games 3, 4 and 6, following the same format the NBA uses in all other rounds. The change to the 2-3-2 format was one of the earliest made by Commissioner David Stern, who has often said he was acting on advice – or complaints – about the travel from former Celtics boss Red Auerbach. But with commercial travel long since replaced by charters, teams didn’t have the same difficulties now with the number of flights.”

With the NBA on a never-ending mission to expand internationally, commissioner David Stern says the League is gonna have to think of altering the start of some games to accommodate the growing audiences overseas. Per SI: “This year, the NBA is playing preseason games in Beijing and Shanghai, while the international regular season games are set for Mexico City and London. Although deputy commissioner Adam Silver said that travel time issues made it difficult to schedule regular season games in China, Stern floated a possible compromise: if the games can’t be brought to China, they could at least be played at a more China-friendly hour. ‘Interestingly, there’s an intermediate step that Yao (Ming) raised earlier with me, and that is the question of whether the NBA would consider modifying some of the start times of its games so that they would be more accessible to international audiences at a more convenient time for them to watch,’ Stern said. ‘And I think that the NBA is going to have to wrestle over the next decade as more and more of our viewing audience is outside the United States, is what’s the best time for games to be played so that those fans can enjoy them live as opposed to having to get up in China and watch an NBA game at 7 in the morning. And I think that’s a fun problem that we’re going to be addressing because so much viewing is happening outside the United States now.’ As it stands, a game that tips off at 7 p.m. in New York City begins at 7 a.m. in Beijing. Even west coast games that tip at 10 p.m. ET start at 10 a.m. in China, which isn’t exactly prime time for vegging out on the couch with a cold one to take in some hoops. The league’s holiday slates aren’t that much more convenient. The start times for this year’s quintuple-header on Christmas will run from 12 p.m. ET to 10:30 p.m. ET. That’s midnight to 10:30 a.m. in Beijing. There’s no realistic way for Chinese fans — especially younger ones — to catch more than a few of those games, and it’s understandable why Stern and Silver might see this as a tremendous lost opportunity.”

For a few years now, New York’s two basketball teams have lobbed verbal grenades at one another, with the front-offices and marketing departments getting involved. According to the NY Post, the NBA wants both sides to basically cut down on the childish insults: “Play nice, guys. That essentially was the directive given to owners James Dolan of the Knicks and Mikhail Prokhorov of the Nets this past season during a meeting orchestrated by NBA Commissioner David Stern, who wanted to snuff any lingering tension between the two and prevent a full-blown feud, multiple league sources said. ‘There was such a meeting and the parties both said it was a very cordial and pleasant one,’ said one league official with knowledge of the sit-down, which happened early in the season. The official also confirmed Stern assisted in getting the pair together in an attempt to prevent a wave of spitballs going back and forth over the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. See? It’s not just players like Paul Pierce and Raymond Felton fueling the feud between the two NBA teams sharing the city. It has been going on for a while, but the Nets no longer are the poor stepchild performing in a New Jersey swamp. Another person with direct knowledge of the sit-down called it ‘cordial and friendly.’ Spokespersons both for Prokhorov and for the Knicks said ‘no comment’ regarding the meeting. One source maintained Prokhorov stokes the rivalry fires because he believes the feud ‘is great for both teams’ and insisted it is ‘not at all personal’ against Dolan, the Garden chairman and Cablevision CEO.”

According to Andrei Kirilenko’s agent, there’s absolutely nothing shady about his $3.1 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets and owner Mikhail Prokhorov (this, after opting out of a $10 million contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves.) Fans, media, rival players, front-office executives and team owners aren’t so sure about that. Per Yahoo! Sports: “The rest of the NBA had resigned itself to billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s relentless pursuit of players and playoff success, absorbing it all until the Brooklyn Nets are pushing an unprecedented $185 million in payroll and punitive taxes. From Deron Williams to Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce to Joe Johnson, these Nets embody the spirit of the Russian’s imperialistic vision. […] The signing of Russian free agent Andrei Kirilenko – a $10 million-a-year player last season – for Brooklyn’s $3.1 mini-midlevel exception has transformed rival owners and front office executives into an angry mob of disbelievers. The insinuations are unmistakable: Around the NBA, there are calls for the commissioner’s office to investigate the possibilities of side deals and Russian rubles ruling the day – for now, unfounded charges based on circumstance and appearances. Within the NBA, there had long been those promising that deals would start popping up involving Prokhorov that made no fiscal sense, theorizing that high-end players could take less within the constraints of the salary cap and still make up the difference in clandestine pacts. Once the Russian billionaire convinced a superb Russian player to take $7 million less to be a backup to Pierce, the rest of the NBA’s reaction was instant and uproarious. For the first time now, the Nets have truly arrived as a contending franchise. They’re good, with a chance to be great, and the rest of the NBA wants an investigation. ‘Brazen,’ one Western Conference GM said. ‘Let’s see if the league has any credibility,’ one NBA owner said. ‘It’s not about stopping it. It’s about punishing them if they’re doing it.’ Another Eastern Conference GM: ‘There should be a probe. How obvious is it?’ The telephone calls and text messages kept coming on Thursday night and Friday morning, and the reason was simple: Few trust Prokhorov to honor the NBA’s salary-cap rules and regulations. He made his $15 billion fortune in the wild 1990s in Russia in what he called, ‘cowboy territory with no sheriff.’ Bribes were part of the business culture, and Prokhorov confessed to his part in it. It is easy to make the accusations, but harder to prove that Prokhorov and his management did anything but a solid sales job after the free-agent market had dried up on Kirilenko. When it comes to uninhibited spending and free-agent coups, the modern NBA has a long list of targets. Understand something else, too: Plenty of American-born owners, running respected franchises, have come under these suspicions, too. Charges of side deals didn’t start with Prokhorov and won’t end with him. Nevertheless, this is the second time there’s been questions about the Nets’ signing of a foreign free agent below market value. A year ago, Brooklyn agreed on a full midlevel-exception deal with Euro forward Mirza Teletovic on a three-year, $15.7 million contract. Shortly after the agreement, Brooklyn realized it needed to alter the exception slot to still keep open the chance for cutting a trade for Dwight Howard. Without re-entering the market, Teletovic accepted a three-year, $9 million deal at the mini midlevel.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern has lorded over the NBA Draft for the last 30 years, and the fans sent him off with boos and an appreciative standing ovation. Hakeem Olajuwon, the very first pick that Stern ever announced (in 1983), came out to pay tribute to the commish.

Rivers, who was the second-longest tenured coach in the NBA behind San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich (17 seasons), was under contract to coach the Celtics for three more seasons, during which he stood to make $21 million. But in a deal that was agreed upon Sunday night, the Celtics will let Rivers, 51, out of his contract in exchange for a 2015 first-round draft pick. Though Celtics center Kevin Garnett was involved in previous incarnations of this deal, he is not involved in the current package.

Rivers, who had left Boston for Orlando in frustration Friday, convinced that the deal was finally dead, now gets his wish to coach a team with a much brighter future than the Celtics. But the source said that as of last night, Rivers had yet to finalize a contract with Donald Sterling, though the Clippers owner is reportedly willing to offer Rivers a five-year deal worth $35 million – the same contract he signed with the Celtics two years ago. Indeed, the word “dead” became the most commonly used term to refer to the dealings between Ainge and Clippers owner Donald Sterling, whose unpredictable reputation still had the Celtics on alert tonight, despite finally having an agreement in place.

This is a major coup for the Clippers, as the hiring of Doc Rivers not only secures one of the NBA’s best coaches, but also likely guarantees free agent superstar point guard Chris Paul’s return. As for the Celtics, their immediate future is uncertain if not bleak.

Rivers finishes his tenure in Beantown with a 426-315 regular season record, and went 106-59 in the Playoffs, the second most postseason wins for a Celtics coach behind Red Auerbach.

During his State of the League address prior to the start of the NBA Finals, Commissioner David Stern admitted to the press last night that flopping is a problem with no real solution at the moment. Mark Cuban, who has a lot of money, is taking steps to correct this. The Dallas Mavericks owner is funding a study by Southern Methodist University researchers to examine the flopping epidemic. Per the press release: “Biomechanics experts at Southern Methodist University have teamed with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to carry out a scientific study of the unsavory practice of player flopping in basketball and other sports. Flopping is a player’s deliberate act of falling, or recoiling unnecessarily from a nearby opponent, to deceive game officials. Athletes engage in dramatic flopping to create the illusion of illegal contact, hoping to bait officials into calling undeserved fouls on opponents. The phenomenon is considered a widespread problem in professional basketball and soccer. To discourage the practice, the National Basketball Association in 2012 began a system of escalating fines against NBA players suspected of flopping, including during the playoffs, ‘NBA announces anti-flopping rules for playoffs.’ The Cuban-owned company Radical Hoops Ltd. awarded a grant of more than $100,000 to fund the 18-month research study at SMU, Dallas. ‘The issues of collisional forces, balance and control in these types of athletic settings are largely uninvestigated,’ said SMU biomechanics expert Peter G. Weyand, who leads the research team. ‘There has been a lot of research into balance and falls in the elderly, but relatively little on active adults and athletes.’ The objective of the research is to investigate the forces involved in typical basketball collisions, said Weyand, an associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics in the SMU Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development.”

Last night in Miami, NBA Commissioner David Stern presented LeBron James with his fourth regular season MVP award. James then went out and posted 24 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. It wasn’t enough, however, as the Chicago Bulls stunned the Heat 93-86 in the series opener.

After announcing to the world that he’s a gay man, Jason Collins gained sudden fame — the 12-year NBA veteran says it’s “mind-boggling” that he’s the first to come out — and in addition to support from the NBA family, Collins got a call from Barack Obama and a shoutout from Bill Clinton. Per CBS: “The president offered congratulations and support on Collins’ courage and willingness to be the first in the four dominant pro sports to make this announcement. First lady Michelle Obama also showed her support for Collins on Twitter Monday. ‘So proud of you, Jason Collins! This is a huge step forward for our country. We’ve got your back!’ she tweeted, signing it ‘-mo,’ which indicates she – not an aide – sent the message. Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters he hadn’t talked to President Obama about Collins’ announcement but said ‘that here at the White House we view that as another example of the progress that has been made and the evolution that has been taking place in this country, and commend him for his courage, and support him in this effort and hope that his fans and his team support him going forward.'”

After the news broke this morning, Jason Collins appears to have the support of the NBA family. Commissioner David Stern released the following statement: “As Adam Silver and I said to Jason, we have known the Collins family since Jason and Jarron joined the NBA in 2001 and they have been exemplary members of the NBA family. Jason has been a widely respected player and teammate throughout his career and we are proud he has assumed the leadership mantle on this very important issue.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern is lording over the final postseason of his 30-year career, and while he’s still in charge, Stern wants to tweak a few things. Namely, the blatant resting of healthy players by teams late in the season. Per ESPN Radio (via SRI): “What’s your reaction to teams resting star players during the season and down the stretch when fans are paying to see games? ‘I must say that I raised that issue with the owners at the board of governors this past week. I didn’t exactly receive one of my warmest welcomes on the subject … but I did say that it was something that they’re going to have to come to grips with. I don’t have the exact right answer, but unbridled resting, like, ‘I can rest more of my guys than you can rest of your guys,’ is really something that we cannot let get out of control. I respect the right of a coach to rest his players. I think that what I’ve spoken out against is sort of not notifying the leagues, the team and sending them home. … We have to come up with some better way … to make sure that our fans, in effect, get their money’s worth.’ What, if anything, are you doing to help Adam Silver as he gets ready to take over your post? ‘He’s going to be so much nicer to you, than I have been. … But beyond that, Adam and I, by the time I step down on Feb. 1, we will have worked together in the NBA for 22 years. OK? So, if he’s not prepared now, he will never be prepared. He knows what I do that he would like to do, and he knows what I do that he would not like to do. And everyone has their own approach to it. There’s nobody that is better prepared in dealing with media, fans, the game, owners, television, international. I’m very happy, and proud, that I have recommended to the owners — and they have accepted — a successor who is totally steeped in our game and our business.'”

With fans in Sacramento anxious and exasperated by the whole thing, a decision on the Kings’ possible move to Seattle likely won’t be made until sometime next month (if that.) DeMarcus Cousins says he’d like to stay with the franchise on a long-term basis, but he along with teammates is frustrated by the lack of certainty going forward. Per the Sac Bee: “The regular season ended Wednesday night with the Los Angeles Clippers beating the Kings 112-108 in front of the third sellout crowd of the season at Sleep Train Arena. But the waiting game goes on without a date on which the fate of the Kings will be decided. ‘It’s a tough matter to deal with every year,’ said third-year center DeMarcus Cousins. ‘It’s an annoying situation. You can’t really plan. Most players have an offseason and they can enjoy it and plan it, but for us it’s a different situation. We’ve always got to be on-call. We never know what’s going to happen.’ […] ‘It’s kind of annoying to answer the same question 25 times,’ said forward Jason Thompson. ‘From stepping outside, to after a game, during a game, with the media, social networks, everywhere you go you’re answering the same question. They think we’re the people with the answers, but really it’s the people they don’t know too much about that have all the answers.’ Players learned the Maloofs had reached an agreement to sell a controlling interest in the franchise in January through the media. ‘We should have a lot more information than we do,’ Cousins said. ‘You feel dumb when a fan comes up and asks you because they believe you know, and your response is, ‘I know as much as you do.’ It’s not a good feeling.’ Since the news broke, the players have talked about not letting it affect their play. ‘I don’t think any of this had anything to do with our play,’ said guard Marcus Thornton. ‘At the end of the day, you still have to go out there and play every game like it’s your last.’ That’s not easy. ‘It does bother your focus,’ Cousins said. […] Life for the players will be easier once a sale is approved, but Cousins might have best summed up the sentiment of his teammates. ‘You’ll have more of a comfort level, but honestly, I’m tired of it,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of it.'”

Streetball schedules in India change drastically in the summer. With temperatures soaring to unbearable heights, most players choose wisely to avoid playing when the sun is up at its harshest. Serious ballers wake up at dawn for an early run around 6-8 a.m., and then, after a day spent at rest/school/work, they return as the sun sets for a few more hours in the cooler evenings. The brave souls who do venture out to play in the afternoons have to deal with dizzying afternoon winds (called Loo in Hindi), and cement courts so hot that they could burn shoe-soles and bare feet. Playing bare feet, of course, isn’t exactly out of the question in the poorer pockets of the cities.

Mumbai is far from being India’s hottest city, but temperatures do begin to soar to uncomfortable highs starting from this time of the year and running into the humid pre-monsoon. And it was in one such April afternoon in the warm, humid city of Mumbai that the man who has single-handedly been most responsible for revolutionizing the game of basketball found himself on a basketball court.

This is an image of NBA Commissioner David Stern, standing alone holding a basketball in a raggedy-looking court in the heart of Mumbai. That is the Mastan YMCA court in Nagpada, a mostly Muslim minority neighborhood in India’s financial capital, an overcrowded bustling area of slumdogs in the city of millionaires. This iconic basketball court is where some of the nation’s finest have honed their craft and where ambitious poor street children mingle with international-level players.

Officially in India for the launch of a NBA Cares program, Stern’s belated visit to the world’s second-largest population means a lot more than charity. Entering the last of his 30 long years as the head honcho of the NBA, Stern has a revolution of the game back home—from Magic and Larry to Jordan to James—and a rapid popularization abroad—from Barcelona ’92 to China. Now, he finds himself, for the first time in his career, in one of basketball’s last international frontiers.

By most accounts, basketball is only second to football (soccer) in its widespread popularity across the world. From the best in the game in North America to the passionate followers of the game in South America and Europe; from the far reaches of Australia and Africa, and the 1.5 billion in China, basketball has been accepted and it has thrived. But the 1.3 billion people—most of whom left completely untouched by the sport—have long stuck out like a sore thumb.

Stern, who took over as Commissioner of the NBA in 1984, visited Russia for the first time in 1988 and China in 1991. In a recent interview with DNA India, he admitted that that the NBA has been late in their entry to the Indian market. But, he added, “We were basically responding to a built-up infrastructure system. India, we were watching. This market is growing at such a rapid pace and we know we have an opportunity (to grow) here. We decided to be here. We only go to [a country] if we are committed. We have offices in India now.”

The NBA’s has had a light presence in India for half a dozen years already, but it was only a year or so ago that the finally opened their first India office in Mumbai. In recent years, the NBA sent current and former players to the country as League ambassadors (Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Brandon Jennings, Muggsy Bogues, George Gervin, etc.) and held various grassroots programs in the major basketball-loving cities in the country. Their presence grew online through NBA’s India website and social media and on the screen, with comprehensive broadcast deals bringing more live NBA games to the Indian household.

But it seemed that India still wasn’t ready yet. In a country of a billion, India still can’t find a 12-man roster to become a basketball heavyweight. India’s national teams still finish in the lower rungs of Asian championships and are usually ranked between 40-50 in the FIBA World Rankings. India’s best players still don’t have a professional league to practice their craft in; instead, they are all semi-professionals who hold other government jobs and take part in federation or private invitational tournaments through the year. The infrastructure in India is still an issue, with few stadiums that can boast international basketball competitions and none that could satisfy the NBA’s high demands. Most players still play in outdoor courts, on cement, still wake up before the sun in the summer or suffer the wrath of the afternoon heat.

The obvious example for Indian basketball to try and imitate are our friendly/frosty neighbors up north: China. Both are big countries with massive populations and a rapidly developing economy. China has accepted basketball with open arms: The game has trickled down from a fairly competent basketball league (CBA) to grassroots adoration into becoming the first-choice sport for most young Chinese. India knows that basketball will never upend cricket in popularity, but those invested in the sport are interested in just capturing the attentions of a small minority. A minority of a billion is still a very, very large number. China got a head-start: the game has been played there for decades and started to become a bigger deal in the ‘90s. India may never get to that level, but Stern’s first visit could finally be the boost that it needs in the right direction.

Stern, for his part, was more optimistic about Indian talent than most, claiming that an Indian could play in the NBA within five years. Unless we count New Mexico State’s Canadian-Indian Sim Bhullar or his younger brother Tanveer (and we won’t), this still seems like quite a far-fetched possibility. The NBA is an impossibly tough league, and India’s coaching, player development, and infrastructure still need a few more years before we can begin to hone an NBA-worthy player. The closest call is Satnam Singh Bhamara—the 7-foot teenager who was plucked out of a tiny Indian village and now finds himself developing at an impressive rate in the IMG Academy in Florida.

Stern stated that he hopes to achieve four things in India: the right scale of adoption of the sport at school level, successful TV coverage, increased presence on digital and social platforms, and run a collegiate league.

Here’s the thing: Basketball is already played in most schools in India. The challenge isn’t to adopt basketball to schools, but to make it a serious option for students and not just a pastime. Most young basketball players—even the really talented ones—quit the game to focus on “real life” as they get older. Indian kids (like other Asian kids) are pressured to focus on traditional academics over anything else. This is a bigger problem facing anyone hoping to venture into sports or arts.

TV coverage is definitely realistic, and the NBA has increased its coverage every year. Only problem with NBA in India on TV is that most live games are at around 5-8 a.m. in the morning, so it’s tough to create the same game-watching atmosphere. The NBA is doing a great job with digital/social outreach in India, and this will continue to grow at a rapid pace.

And in reference to Stern’s last point: More than collegiate or school leagues, the NBA in India has been involved in promoting grassroots level competitions for inner-city amateurs around the country.

What India really, desperately needs, is a national professional basketball league. The type of league that will help create consistent basketball earnings for the best players in the game in the country and will encourage young talents to not quit on their hoop dreams too early. The type of league that if marketed the right way so casual fans of the sport—who know more about Kobe Bryant and LeBron James than home-grown stars like Vishesh Bhriguvanshi and Jagdeep Singh—can become more aware of the Indian basketball talent. The type of league that can create jobs for referees and coaches, and assistants and managers, and agents and physiotherapists, and commentators and more. The league that could potentially would be the biggest push to improve on the basketball infrastructure across the county.

India’s experiment with this type of league—Cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL)—has already been in place for the past six years and enjoys a fanatic level of popularity. Private owners got involved and pumped in money into the IPL, and it has resulted in one of the richest leagues in the sport. Other sports in India can’t expect cricket’s level of success, but similar leagues exist in field hockey, football and badminton.

A pro basketball league can’t be too far away. The incentive will have to come from the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), the sport’s governing body in the country, and IMG Worldwide, the international conglomerate who have been the BFI’s sponsors for the past few seasons.

During his stay in Mumbai, Stern met with several current and prospective business partners for the NBA before enjoying an evening at an IPL game. Like the IPL learned from the NBA in marketing cricket in India, Stern commented that the NBA will have to learn from the IPL to work in conjunction with the BFI and IMG to market basketball.

Things will not be as glamorous as they are in the States, or even work as smoothly as they do in China, but Stern’s visit has definitely signaled that basketball in India is headed in the right direction. And if a small fraction of the world’s second-largest population can become further enamored by basketball, it could help make a big dent in the game’s future worldwide.

“India is totally unique,” Stern said. “We are starting from the bottom. And I must tell you we could not be more confident.”

”The bottom.” As in the world’s largest youth population just waiting to be sold the game of basketball to become a real power. “The bottom” are kids who play basketball in bare feet on hot days and kids who watch the NBA’s Commissioner promote a wonderful sport in their own backyard, near their own slums.

”The bottom,” where money, fame, indoors, outdoors, hot and cold go out the window, and the only thing left is the player and the game.

The ownership groups from Sacramento and Seattle made their pitches to the NBA about why they should have the Kings, but the League says the issue remains far too complex for a decision to be made anytime soon. David Stern and Adam Silver said the other 29 team owners need more time and information before a vote can take place. Per TNT: “The decision on where the Sacramento Kings will play basketball next season might not be made by the April 18 Board of Governors meeting, NBA Commissioner David Stern said Wednesday, detailing the full complexity of the decision the league has to make on whether to keep the Kings in Sacramento or approve a sale of them and move to Seattle in time for next season. Stern and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver on Wednesday seemed genuinely uncertain about how this years-long saga will finally play out, saying their owners needed to amass more information about numerous topics before they could even begin to make a call on which city will win and which will lose. ‘There are questions that the committee has asked us, the staff, to go back and seek details and answers on,’ Stern said at a late afternoon news conference. The main questions, Stern said, centered on the arena plans for each city — specifically, how soon they could go up, potential legal obstacles to the buildings in each city and the capital commitments that will be required from each group. The time frame for getting the new arenas built is central to each city’s bid because both Key Arena in Seattle and Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento are, as Stern put it, ‘suboptimal arenas’ that the Kings would have to play in for some period of time, ‘given the fact that there is no finality to the construction schedules in either city,’ he said. ‘And so we have a lot of work to do from a construction timeline, a regulatory timeline, an ownership and capital structure timeline, and all kinds of other things that the committee has asked us to go back, with lawyers, and just get a lot more data and information.’ Officials from Sacramento and Seattle made their pitches to the combined Relocation and Finance committees, with Stern and Silver sitting in. Owners present included: Spurs owner Peter Holt, the chairman of the Board of Governors; Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor; Thunder owner Clay Bennett, the chair of the relocation committee; Knicks chairman James Dolan; Wizards owner Ted Leonsis; Raptors owner Larry Tanenbaum; Pacers owner Herb Simon; and Celtics chairman Wyc Grousbeck. Showing an uncertainty in public that is rare, Stern and Silver detailed the labrynth of issues that will be necessary for owners to navigate in the coming weeks. But those issues may prove too complicated to be resolved one way or another by the 18th, even as the NBA understands it needs to make a choice.”

The Commissioner said Friday night that the Sacramento counteroffer has a chance, but it must improve financially to go before the NBA Board of Governors. The BOG will take a vote on the sale and relocation of the Kings franchise April 18 in New York City. Per the AP: “NBA Commissioner David Stern said Friday night that the counteroffer to keep the Sacramento Kings from moving to Seattle needs to be increased financially before the league’s owners would even consider the bid. Speaking to reporters before the Golden State Warriors hosted the Houston Rockets, Stern said the Sacramento group’s offer has some ‘very strong financial people behind it but it is not quite there in terms of a comparison to the Seattle bid.’ He added that ‘unless it increases, it doesn’t get to the state of consideration.’ The league has scheduled a meeting April 3 in New York to avoid rushing debate on the issue. Representatives from Sacramento and Seattle will have a chance to present their case at that meeting, Stern said. The NBA Board of Governors will convene April 18, when a vote is expected to take place on the sale and relocation of the Kings franchise. A sale of a franchise requires a three-fourths majority approval of owners, while relocation requires just a simple majority. Stern said he is still hopeful that the Sacramento bid, led by 24 Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov and billionaire grocery tycoon Ron Burkle, will be comparable to the Seattle offer by the time owners have to make a decision. ‘I think right now it is fair to say that the offers are not comparable,’ Stern said.”

As had been expected for some time now, testing for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is making its way to the NBA, and fast. According to Commissioner David Stern, it could be in place as early as next season. Per WCCO (via SI): “We watch what’s going on in baseball, we watch the negotiations that are going in with football, and it is my expectation that by next season [we] will be doing blood testing for HGH,’ Stern said. ‘Our players have been terrific. They lead this in some ways, saying, ‘ We do not want to have anything less than the best.’ That’s been the way it’s been since 1983.’ […] ‘If I say I don’t have a concern, everyone says I’m a Pollyanna,’ Stern said. ‘I don’t have any reason to know one way or another. My guess is and my hope is that it’s not widely used in the NBA.'”

The embattled Billy Hunter, Executive Director of the NBA Players Association, has seen better days. With his leadership under constant attack — from players, powerful agents, the media and fans — Hunter responded by firing members of his own family from their union gigs. The drastic move comes after multiple reports accused Billy Hunter of nepotism and questioned some of the spending within the organization. Reports Bloomberg: “The moves against personnel including his daughter and daughter-in-law were disclosed in a letter from Hunter to members of a special committee of players established prior to the investigation by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison […] The New York-based union paid almost $4.8 million to Hunter’s family members and their professional firms since 2001, according to public records. Hunter makes $3 million a year as union chief. ‘Hopefully this decision will alleviate any concerns raised by their employment,’ Hunter wrote in the letter. ‘These measures are being taken although the report noted that both of them were highly qualified, not overpaid, and were contributing members of the NBPA staff.’ Robyn Hunter, the director’s daughter, ceased working at the union on Jan. 25, according to the letter. Megan Inaba, his daughter-in-law and director of special events and sponsorships, will leave on Feb. 17 after the National Basketball Association’s All-Star weekend. Hunter, 70, also secured a letter of resignation from Prim Capital, which employs his son, Todd. […] The changes come about two weeks after the independent investigation of the union’s business practices found that Hunter, the organization’s leader since 1996, put personal interests ahead of the association, failed to manage conflicts of interest, and didn’t have proper approval for his five-year, $15 million contract as director. The investigation by Paul, Weiss also concluded that Hunter didn’t do anything illegal. It said players should consider a change in leadership. Hunter’s letter to the committee, comprised of James Jones of the Miami Heat, Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs, Anthony Tolliver of the Atlanta Hawks and Matt Carroll and Etan Thomas, who aren’t currently on rosters, also said the union would adopt policies related to conflicts of interest, hiring and document retention.”

The San Antonio Spurs angered the NBA when they sent home four healthy players prior to a nationally-televised game against the Miami Heat. For that, the League docked them a cool $250K. And now, someone is suing the Spurs for their act, claiming that head coach Gregg Popovich violated the state of Florida’s deceptive and fair trade practices law. ESPN has more: “On Monday, Larry McGuinness filed a class action suit in Miami-Dade County, stating that the team’s head coach, Gregg Popovich, ‘intentionally and surrepticiously’ sent their best players home without the knowledge of the league, the team and the fans attending the Nov. 29 game against the Heat. McGuinness contends that he, as well as other fans, ‘suffered economic damages’ as a result of paying a premium price for a ticket that shouldn’t cost more. Before the game, Popovich sent Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Danny Green back to San Antonio, saying that he believed that resting his top players for their fourth game in five days was a smart decision. […] ‘It was like going to Morton’s Steakhouse and paying $63 for porterhouse and they bring out cube steak,’ said McGuinness, who said he bought his ticket on the resale market. ‘That’s exactly what happened here.’ […] Some could argue that the Heat fans got their money’s worth. That’s because the team barely beat the undermanned Spurs, 105-100 that night. McGuinness said that doesn’t mean a game with the Spurs top players couldn’t have been more exciting. McGuinness said he didn’t believe that the Spurs were served with the lawsuit yet. Team spokesman Tom James said he was not in the position to comment on the case.”

So was incensed by the officiating following the 2006 NBA Finals, which the Miami Heat won over the Dallas Mavericks in controversial fashion, that owner Mark Cuban seriously considered selling the team. He continues to be frustrated by the refs, but Cuban isn’t planning on letting go of his team anytime soon. Per the Star-Telegram: “Asked before Saturday’s game against New Orleans how long he hopes to keep the Mavs, Cuban said, ‘Hopefully my kids and their kids [will own the team]. I always said unless something about the game drove me nuts, or the league, I would stick it out.’ In the 2006 NBA Finals, when the Miami Heat rallied from an 0-2 hole to beat the Mavs in six games, Cuban was so disgusted with the officiating in that series that he was ready to turn in his NBA ownership. ‘We put out feelers,’ Cuban said. ‘I was really questioning the integrity of the game. After 2006, I was probably ready to sell. But I took some time off.’ Friday marked the 13th anniversary since Cuban reached an agreement to purchase the Mavs from Ross Perot Jr. on Jan., 4, 2000, for a whopping $285 million. Cuban admits to badly overpaying for a franchise that was one of the worst in professional sports during the 1990s, and one that NBA commissioner David Stern likely urged Perot to sell to increase the value of other franchises across the NBA. ‘That’s why they let me in,’ Cuban said. ‘Stern was like, ‘Are you kidding? How can you turn down that much money?’ Cuban, who just returned from a 10-day family vacation in the Cayman Islands, said former Mavs All-Star forward Mark Aguirre was the person who set the wheels in motion for him to buy the Mavs. ‘I went to Mark Aguirre and he introduced me to Perot’s people, and that’s how the whole thing happened,’ Cuban said. ‘[Perot] knew I was paying too much, and he wasn’t dumb enough to say no.'”

NBA Commissioner David Stern railed against teams intentionally fouling poor free-throw shooters (see: Howard, Dwight), saying it’s “ludicrous”. Mark Cuban thinks it’s an important part of the game, that evens the playing field to a certain degree. Per Fox Sports: “Under the current rules, intentionally fouling a player who doesn’t have the ball in the last two minutes of a game leads to two free throws and that ball out of bounds. Stern wanted that rule applied for all 48 minutes. ‘I would have liked to have seen the rule changed to make the last-two-minute rule the whole rule,’ the commish said. ‘It was getting to a point last year where first period they were just grabbing players. I think that’s ludicrous. We tried to change it to any time in the game because last year, I guess, it was everyone was fouling Tiago Splitter early on, and the committee didn’t want to do it. And so that’s just the way it is. Because the reality is that there are a lot of basketball purists — and I understand that point of view — who say, ‘Hey, why don’t you learn to shoot foul shots? You’re supposed to be a pro.” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban isn’t for the rule change for basketball reasons from the professional level on down to little leagues. ‘It sends the wrong message to kids every where that it’s OK to not pay attention to basketball fundamentals,” Cuban said. ‘In addition, intentional fouls humanize the game. There are 10 year olds who are watching these amazing athletes who have problems with free throws thinking that they can do something an NBA superstar can’t.’ […] ‘You can’t give a player an advantage or reward them for failing to do something that is a basic fundamental basketball skill,’ Cuban added. ‘When a guy can’t shoot a jump shot, whether you are in a church league or the NBA, you do what you can to make them shoot jump shots. If a guy can’t shoot free throws, you should do the same thing. Do what you can to send them to the line.'”

It was a historic night for Kobe Bryant, as he became the youngest NBA player ever to reach 30,000 career points. Commissioner David Stern happened to be on hand for the game, and said Kobe and Michael Jordan belong on the same pedestal. (Incidentally, Bryant is now just 2,276 points away from reaching MJ’s total.) From the LA Daily News: “I want to shake his hand. I think Kobe as a talent and a competitor, he’s up there on the pedestal with Michael Jordan as one of the greatest ever,’ Stern said. ‘Kobe has had such an extraordinary run playing at the highest level for so long and the championships to prove it in a league that is extremely competitive. Kobe and the Lakers have been an important part of the league and I wish them well for this season and beyond.’ Stern still provided little sympathy for the Lakers having to pay harsh luxury tax penalties because of a $100 million payroll. The Lakers, after all, are in the first year of a lucrative 20-year deal with Time Warner Cable. ‘It’s one component of Lakers income that gets accounted for when they make a payment in the revenue sharing pool,’ Stern said of the team’s cable deal. ‘There’s more money to be shared. The combination of that and the tax tend to act as a brake on team spending.'”

Ever since NBA Chief David Stern announced his retirement, effective as of February 2014, a debate has erupted over the legacy of the man they call Money. Is Stern the greatest commissioner in sports history or merely the luckiest? The argument for calling him the best to sit in the big chair points to a League that has gone from near insolvency to a global brand with the explosion in franchise values and average player salaries as proof positive of his impact. The argument for calling him the luckiest man alive will point out that he came to power alongside Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, the three most popular and marketable basketball players to ever walk the earth. They’ll also point to a little thing called cable television, which vastly expanded the reach of the sport.

I would argue that understanding Stern as lucky or good isn’t the best way to measure the man. Stern’s legacy is less a question of luck or skill; clearly, like most successful chief executives, he’s had both in ample proportion. Instead, I think it’s far more helpful to understand Stern as someone who was an extremely effective advocate for corporate power and the needs of ownership. When those needs dovetailed with the interests of fans, for example the expansion of the League, the infusion of global talent or the birth of NBA television, we loved him. But far too often, he presided over decisions that kicked both fans and players in the teeth. What’s good for ownership, in other words, is not necessarily what’s good for us, yet Stern’s reflex was always to stand with the people on his side of the table.

It was good for owners that there is no NBA team in the great hoops city of Seattle, and a powerful message was sent to the people to never deny the League funds to build a new public stadium. It was good for owners to sacrifice nearly two months of games last season to roll back player salaries in a lockout that came after a year of record revenues. It was good for owners that Stern never stepped in, after all these decades, to discipline Clippers boss Donald Sterling or Knicks chief James Dolan, even though the behavior of both at different points has been an embarrassment. It was good for owners that the accusations of former referee Tim Donaghy that officiating in the League is deeply flawed, and possibly corrupt, was never investigated. It was good for owners that inflated ticket prices have made seeing a game in many cities unaffordable despite the rows of pre-bought empty seats that dot most arenas.

It was good for owners that players who spoke out politically under Stern’s tenure like Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf were never able to find a team, making clear to players to know their place. It was good for owners for Stern to be given the power to treat grown players like children, controlling everything from how they dress, to places they’re allowed to visit on the road, to how long players can greet each other and shake hands before game time.

I look at the above ledger and come to my own conclusion that I will not mourn the end of the David Stern era. The best interests of owners more often than not have not translated into the best interests of the game. We watch because the players of the NBA are the greatest athletes on earth and can dazzle with their wicked grace. We watch because it’s a sport where players can surf the emotions of fans and perform the impossible. We don’t watch to see David Stern. Over the last 30 years, the game has become something bigger than life, but the man at the controls has chosen too often to be very small.

By now, you know what happened: Gregg Popovich rested four of his players, David Stern retaliated. Did the punishment fit the crime, if what Pop did was a crime in the first place? Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The San Antonio Spurs organization has been fined $250,000 for sitting out Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Danny Green for a game against the Miami Heat (which they nearly won using their JV squad.)

Here’s the full statement from the NBA:

The NBA announced today that the San Antonio Spurs organization has been fined $250,000 for its decision to send four players home prior to the Spurs’ Nov. 29 game in Miami. The Spurs’ actions were in violation of a league policy, reviewed with the NBA Board of Governors in April 2010, against resting players in a manner contrary to the best interests of the NBA.

NBA Commissioner David Stern stated: “The result here is dictated by the totality of the facts in this case. The Spurs decided to make four of their top players unavailable for an early-season game that was the team’s only regular-season visit to Miami. The team also did this without informing the Heat, the media, or the league office in a timely way. Under these circumstances, I have concluded that the Spurs did a disservice to the league and our fans.”

Going forward, it will be interesting to see what tactics teams like the Spurs begin to adopt, in order to rest their veteran players without getting in trouble with the NBA.

NBA coaches tend to stick up for one another. So, it came as no surprise that Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl came to Gregg Popovich’s defense when news broke that the NBA would be sanctioning the San Antonio Spurs for resting perfectly healthy players. Understandably, Karl was very cautious with his comments. Per the Denver Post: “Before Thursday’s game in Golden State, Denver coach George Karl was asked about Pop’s decision. ‘I don’t think I’m touching this one – the only question I would ask is, is the commissioner in the right?’ Karl said. ‘If you’re going to ask if Pop is in the right, you’ve got to ask if the commissioner is in the right. And I’m not answering either one. To me, how you coach the team should be on the organization and the coach.'”

]]>http://www.slamonline.com/nba/george-karl-carefully-supports-gregg-popovichs-decision-to-rest-stars/feed/2NBA Will Punish the Spurs Because They Messed With a National TV Gamehttp://www.slamonline.com/nba/nba-will-punish-the-spurs-because-they-messed-with-a-national-tv-game/
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/nba-will-punish-the-spurs-because-they-messed-with-a-national-tv-game/#commentsFri, 30 Nov 2012 14:00:21 +0000http://www.slamonline.com/online/?p=241491

This is all about money and image for the NBA — they had never sanctioned Popovich and the Spurs for this type of thing before (though other organizations have been slapped on the wrist for resting players.) Deputiy Commissioner Adam Silver even said the following last April after the lockout, when asked about teams purposely sitting out healthy players: “This is a unique season and fans understand that competitive strategy is part of what goes into coaching this year … The strategic resting of particular players on particular nights is within the discretion of the teams … And Gregg Popovich in particular is probably the last coach that I would second-guess.”

Stern can’t tell Popovich who to play and when to play them, anymore than he can dictate minutes. That’s why the league has allowed Popovich to do this in the past. But Thursday was different for Stern. This was TNT, with the defending champs, with a game that had been advertised as a potential Finals matchup. This is the kind of marketing night that Stern built his empire on, and there was Popovich, often resistant to the Stern way of doing things, undercutting the selling of LeBron.

Popovich and the Spurs said after the game they hadn’t heard about Stern’s “unacceptable decision” statement. Once told, they wished even more that one more 3-pointer had kicked in. “Man,” Matt Bonner said, “it would’ve been great if we won.” Even in losing, Popovich looked like a coach with a plan. His subs played the system and with confidence; each might be better for it. Now, all of them finally get off this 10-day road trip for a divisional showdown with Memphis with four starters rested.

Prior to last night’s tilt against the Heat, and before he was told of the League’s angry stance, Gregg Popovich explained that he understood why some might be unhappy with his decision, but that it was ultimately made with the best interests of his team in mind.

No one knows yet what the punishment will be, but it’s likely to be harsh enough that Pop will have to come up with more creative ways to find rest for his aging stars.

Most people had a good laugh earlier today when Gregg Popovich elected to rest Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Danny Green for tonight’s nationally-televised game against the Miami Heat. The NBA office wasn’t amused, however, and issued a statement that they plan to heavily punish the Spurs for their act. Here are League commissioner David Stern’s acidic words: “I apologize to all NBA fans. This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming.”

The NBA is doing well financially; really well. Commissioner David Stern estimates that the League’s revenues will reach record levels this season. Per the AP: “NBA Commissioner David Stern estimates revenue will be a record $5 billion in the current season, an increase of about 20 percent from the league’s last full season in 2010-11. Speaking Tuesday at Beyond Sport United, a gathering of global team, league and industry executives at Yankee Stadium that focuses on social responsibility. Stern said NBA expansion to Europe is probably at least a decade away and that it likely would make sense to add several clubs there at once. ‘I think for us the thing that would make the most sense would be a division in Europe at the time that it comes,’ he said. ‘I don’t see that for another decade at least. Not one team.’ […] The league’s revenue estimate is for the year ending next Sept. 30. That puts the NBA third among the major North American leagues, trailing the NFL ($9 billion) and Major League Baseball ($7.5 billion), but ahead of the NHL ($3.3 billion). ‘I would say that China, which is the largest segment outside the U.S., is doing very well. I would say we’ll see that to some degree as well in Turkey, in Africa, in Brazil,’ Stern said. ‘The components are broadcast, digital, merchandise, marketing partnerships and events, which can be games and the 3-on-3 tournaments and clinics, any variety of events that draw people.’ Stern said the NBA is broadcast in 46 languages to 216 nations or territories.”

Brent Barry tells an amazing tale from his playing days, when he planted a kiss on NBA Commissioner David Stern’s cheek during the championship ring ceremony for the 2005 champion San Antonio Spurs. Tim Duncan had to fork over one hundred bucks for the stunt. Per Buzzfeed: “As I basked in that satisfaction I stood next to Tim Duncan. I said something like ‘Well that was fun last year, we should try to do this again!’ He giggled his goofy giggle. And then I asked him how much he would give me if I kissed David Stern upon getting my ring. He offered a sum, I considered it and waited for my name to be called. As I approached the Commish I felt like I couldn’t let my captain down. So after a quick ‘Congratulations Brent’ from David I hugged him and planted one right on his cheek. To this day, I swear he and grandma have the same skin. As I moved slowly from the spotlight as it found the next player, I casually glanced over to Tim and, wiping my tongue with my fingertips as if something flakey remained from my time with Mr. Stern, I mouthed the words: ‘You owe me a hundred bucks!’ I swear I heard him laugh all the way over to where I stood on the court. Needless to say, in 2007 when I was a part of a second championship with the Spurs, things were not as spontaneous. I saw David in the locker room prior to the game as he usually makes it standard practice to visit the teams prior to the ceremony as he did in 2005. He stole a moment with me and told me there’ll be no more kisses tonight. During the ceremony, this time David and I exchanged a look I will always remember. Best $100 bucks I ever made…”

David Stern doesn’t have very much time left as NBA commissioner. Stern’s acidic tongue is one of the things we’ll miss once he’s gone. Case in point: the clip above, in which he knocks U.S. President Barack Obama’s hoops game down a few pegs.

As NBA Commissioner David Stern prepares to step down from his perch atop the League, one of his big final initiatives, is to reportedly steward the return of NBA basketball to Seattle. According to Yahoo! Sports: “Between now and his departure, Stern is determined to get a franchise back into Seattle, league sources said. He has become a strong ally of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s group to bring back the NBA there. Ballmer’s group has been trying to get the Maloof family to sell the Sacramento Kings, so that the franchise can eventually play in a new arena in Seattle. From the league office, pressure on the Maloofs to sell has been growing, sources said – just as hopes for a new Sacramento arena have been fading. Seattle Sonics fans will never forgive Stern for his complicit role in Clay Bennett’s deception to move that franchise to Oklahoma City, but make no mistake: Stern desperately wants to return the NBA to one of its great markets and wants it for his own measure of vindication before he leaves office. As one source involved in the process said, ‘Stern has enough time to get a team back to Seattle, but he’ll let Silver deal with the crowd [booing] on opening night.'”

David Stern spent nearly 30 years growing the NBA, turning a league that couldn’t even get its championship series on live prime-time TV into a projected $5 billion a year industry. Confident the NBA is in good shape and certain he has found someone who can make it even better, Stern is ready to end one of the most successful and impactful careers in sports history. Stern will retire as commissioner Feb. 1, 2014, 30 years to the day after taking charge of the league, and be replaced by Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver.

“I decided that things are in great shape and there’s an organization in place that will ultimately be led by Adam that is totally prepared to take it to the next level,” Stern said.

Stern said he wouldn’t leave until he knew there was a successor ready, and he has repeatedly said Silver is ready for that role. Stern said he would always remain available to take a call and help the league. “Life is a journey and it’s been a spectacular journey,” Stern said. “Each step along the way there are things that you have to do, things that you maybe wish you hadn’t done. But I don’t keep that list, and so I’m totally pleased and I’m particularly pleased with the transition of which we’re now embarking.”

Jeff Van Gundy backed up his brother Stan Van Gundy’s claim that the NBA stopped him from getting a prominent TV gig. JVG, who works for ESPN, made the accusation in an interview with USA Today: “Jeff says his brother ‘had a basic agreement’ to become an ESPN/ABC analyst in the marquee studio shows that wrap around game coverage: ‘And then something changed. There’s certainly circumstantial evidence that something from the outside — presumably the NBA — changed (ESPN’s) thinking. … I was happy when they came to an agreement and shocked when they pulled their offer.’ Obviously it’s personal for Jeff. And after ESPN asked Jeff to help recruit Stan, ‘Obviously this stings. Frankly, it’s a shame what happened.’ Going forward? ‘As a broadcaster of the NBA, it give you pause,’ Jeff says. ‘How forthcoming can you be? You don’t want your honesty to cost you a chance at employment.This is a shot across the bow.’ Jeff’s big picture: ‘This is an organization that’s treated me great. But this raises interesting questions about what a (league-network) partnership means. You have to realize, as a fan, you’re not getting the whole truth. … It seems like there are certain people in each sport that (TV) can’t criticize, or you can’t criticize the league itself. That’s what impressed me when (ESPN’s) Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden criticized the NFL over replacement refs. That (Commissioner) Roger Goodell didn’t throw a hissy fit at ESPN was impressive.’ […] Sunday, ESPN’s Mike Soltys said, ‘We had discussions with (Stan) and we were interested in a role for him at ESPN. Ultimately, we moved in a different direction.’ […] NBA spokesman Mike Bass on Sunday said, ‘It was ESPN and ESPN alone who made any decisions about Stan Van Gundy.'”

With Tracy McGrady being the latest player to go from the NBA to the CBA, commissioner David Stern appears to be a big fan of the move (likely because it helps promote his League’s brand in the highly lucrative Chinese marketplace). From Reuters: “Two-times NBA scoring champion Tracy McGrady’s decision to extend his career in China gives the league its most successful player to date and has earned widespread praise. ‘I think it is a great idea,’ NBA commissioner David Stern told the China Daily. ‘The CBA has become a place where players can extend their careers, and that’s a wonderful thing.’ The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) has seen several former NBA players join in recent seasons, with former New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury its greatest success story. The 35-year-old Marbury, who also had spells in Boston and Phoenix, led the Beijing Ducks to the CBA title earlier this year. […] McGrady will reportedly become the highest-paid player in the CBA and his coach has already targeted the playoffs. But health and motivation will be factors for the 33-year-old, coming off a career-low season averaging 5.3 points in just 16 minutes with the Atlanta Hawks. ‘The CBA isn’t as easy as people think,’ warned Marbury. ‘I don’t know what he will be capable of doing until he plays.’ Stern said former NBA players were attracted by the CBA’s increased competitiveness, also sounding a note of caution for fans not to expect too much of McGrady too soon.”

For years now, media and fans alike have wondered if the NBA would ever put a team (or multiple teams) in Europe, a move that’d fit right along with the global expansion the NBA has made under commissioner David Stern’s reign. Won’t be happening anytime soon, the Boston Globereports: “There was a time when Stern had dreams of a team or even a division in Europe, a first in American sports. He was determined to devise a way for a group of teams in London, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, and Berlin to compete with the 30 stateside NBA teams and even have a real world championship series. Regardless of how uncomfortable the idea made fans who believe 30 teams was enough — and regardless of how inconceivable it might be to have a team in a time zone six hours ahead of the Eastern US — Stern was going to add the London Abbeys to the NBA. But that idea seems to have fizzled along with the international economy and the lack of NBA-worthy venues overseas. What Stern realized is that many of the arenas that house Euroleague teams are not up to NBA standards. … ‘I don’t think having a single team in Europe is practical,’ Stern said last week in Milan before watching the Celtics take on Emporio Armani Milano. ‘I never have. What I’ve said is if we’re going to have an NBA presence here in terms of the league, it should be five teams. It’s safe to say that there aren’t enough buildings, there aren’t adequate TV arrangements, we don’t have owners, and I’m not sure we could charge the prices that would be necessary. I don’t think our fans are that avid yet.”

Former Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy says that he was close to landing a TV gig over at ESPN, before the network suddenly changed their mind. SVG ripped into the mammoth corporation during a sports radio interview, and accused the NBA of dictating some of the decision-making in Bristol. From TBL: “No one at ESPN will tell us what happened. Certainly the NBA office isn’t going to tell us what happened. One of the quotes from ESPN in there – we had discussions, but couldn’t agree on a role … as is usual, that’s a bunch of BS from ESPN. We actually did agree on a role, but then they came back and pulled that. That’s when we knew something was up. Nobody is going to give a straight answer because … that’s just the way a lot of people operate … nobody there has the guts to say anything, so that’s what you deal with. What I find fascinating … you have to give David Stern and the NBA a lot of credit … ESPN pays the league, and then the league tells them what to do. It’s more ESPN’s problem. You gotta have no balls whatsoever to pay someone hundreds of millions of dollars and let them run your business. Just say what happened. Who cares? Who cares if I’m on there or not. Just come out and say this is what we decided and why … [ESPN’s quote] that’s just a flat out lie. Why would you do that? I don’t understand. We agreed on something, you changed your mind and pulled the offer. Don’t say we couldn’t come to an agreement. We did.”

The city of Seattle recently approved a plan to build a new arena that would house pro basketball and hockey teams. NBA commissioner David Stern says that he’d like to see a hoops team return to Seattle within five years. Per the Boston Globe: “Commissioner David Stern offered this little nugget on the future of basketball in Seattle, which just approved a new arena plan when talking to reporters in Milan, Italy. ‘It would be my hope that within the time frame that you mentioned, five years, that if everything works out perfectly, there would be a new arena and new team in Seattle. That’s always, for the board of governors, but I know that many governors are favorably inclined.'”

The newly-announced financial penalties for NBA players that the League deems to have flopped are an understandably divisive issue. Despite the players’ approval of the new rules – no matter how wildly misguided that may be – there has been pushback. The union has filed a grievance against the NBA, Blake Griffin painted the penalties as little more than a cash grab, and now Dirk Nowitzki has some colorful language to explain his feelings on the matter. Per the Dallas Morning News: “I never looked at myself as a big flopper,’ Nowitzki said. ‘If you play me physical then, obviously, I got to sell the call and get to the (free-throw) line. That’s just part of the game. We’ll have to see how they enforce that. I think it’s a bunch of crap to be honest with you. Are they going to come back after a game and fine you for flopping? That’s tough to do to me.’ Commissioner David Stern, in Europe for the NBA’s preseason-opening games, was at the Mavericks’ appearance to dedicate an outdoor basketball court at an east Berlin playground and he defended the league’s decision to start getting tough on acting jobs. […] ‘Actually, many players have said, that’s great,’ Stern said about the reaction he’s gotten so far. ‘Now we can make the game about basketball talent rather than acting talent. I think the players association has a different perspective. I guess they like acting. But we think we have the greatest athletes in the world playing at a very high pace and they should be rewarded for that great play and they shouldn’t cause the game to be decided on anything other than their basketball merits.’”

Players’ union has issued a statement challenging the validity of the NBA’s new flopping policy: “The NBA is not allowed to unilaterally impose new economic discipline against the players without first bargaining with the union. We believe that any monetary penalty for an act of this type is inappropriate and without precedent in our sport or any other sport. We will bring appropriate legal action to challenge what is clearly a vague and arbitrary overreaction and overreach by the Commissioner’s office.”

NBA spokesman Tim Frank said, “Although we haven’t seen any filing from the Players Association, our adoption of an anti-flopping rule is fully consistent with our rights and obligations under the collective bargaining agreement and the law.”

Players, for the most part, seem to be in favor of the rules against flopping. The problem for their union, comes down to the issue of additional money they risk to lose thanks to these new penalties.

Which is simply terrific. Another battle between players, owners and the commissioner is just what the NBA needed on the eve of a new season.

After years of complaints, the N.B.A. finally appears ready to outlaw flopping — the act of exaggerating contact to induce a foul call. League officials are still deliberating the specifics, but the policy will probably involve a postgame review, rather than an in-game ruling by referees, according to a spokesman.

The most likely penalty will be a fine. Whether the league will increase fines for repeat offenders, or even suspend habitual floppers, is not yet clear. The new rules are expected to be finalized in the next few weeks and instituted for the coming season. Making flopping an in-game infraction has also been discussed, but it would be tough to determine without the benefit of replay. It would also place a greater burden on referees, who gathered this week for their annual training camp.

According to Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl, last year’s shortened regular season was an ideal arrangement. From NBA.com: “The thing that lacked last year, I thought, was a foundation of fundamentals and the depth, maybe, of your packages. The depth of your defense and offense. Veteran teams had the opportunity to have a bigger playbook. But I thought we got the most out of our season that we could ever hope to. We had two or three opportunities to fall flat on our faces and we didn’t do it, and I think that will make us stronger. During the season, you could see that teams were going to come back [to the pack] because you knew the schedule was going to get to them. When we went [5-10] in February, it wasn’t about record. The schedule said, ‘All right, you maybe should have won six.’ […] ‘I’m sure Commissioner Stern won’t like this, but I think the product would be better if we shortened the season. When we start playing in late October, the people are thinking football. If you could just get us less fatigue [in a shorter season], I think you’d have a better product. When they started on Christmas Day, I thought, ‘This is not a bad idea. This should be the start of NBA basketball … Maybe start Dec. 1 and play 62 games, whatever number they’d come to.'”

NBA Commissioner David Stern has been awarded the prestigious Olympic Order by the International Olympic Committee. Stern, who’s helped develop and expand both the NBA and Olympic basketball, was presented with the award during half-time of the USA-Spain gold medal game Sunday afternoon. Stern has long worked towards integrating professional players into the Olympics, and has also heavily contributed to the advancement of women’s basketball, most notably pioneering the WNBA.

Together with the then FIBA Secretary General Borislav Stankovic—who was awarded the Olympic Order in 1985—Stern was the key figure in working towards the participation of professional basketball players in the Olympics, including those of the NBA. He received the award 20 years after the Barcelona Games, the first edition in which the non-amateur athletes were authorized to play the basketball tournament. “Thanks to your efforts, you have developed the NBA in a great way and you have developed the international aspect of basketball in a major way,” said IOC President Jacques Rogge. Among other achievements singled out by Rogge, was his contribution to women’s sport thanks to the setting up of the WNBA, one of the first fully professional sports leagues for women. The Olympic Order is the highest award of the Olympic Movement and is awarded for the recognition of merits in the cause of sport or the Olympic Movement.

Coaches for the Russian and Lithuanian sides are the latest to come out and publicly decry NBA commissioner David Stern’s wish to limit participation in the Olympics from NBA players with 23-and-under rule going forward. From Yahoo! Sports: “I would hope that the countries would be in an uproar about this,’ Russia coach David Blatt said. ‘Who is one country to determine for everyone how international basketball should be played, and particularly how the Olympic Games should be managed? It’s not supposed to be like that. If it’s a global game, it’s a global game.’ […] Stern will soon meet with FIBA secretary Patrick Baumann, who told the Sports Business Journal that he needed to hear many more details from the NBA before bringing an Under-23 tournament idea to the 200-plus countries in membership. If the NBA doesn’t get what it wants out of a financial partnership with FIBA in a World Cup tournament, Baumann sounded dubious over the NBA’s chances of financing its own non-sanctioned global event. ‘Everybody’s free to organize a tournament,’ Baumann told SBJ. ‘Whether the rest of the world will participate is their choice. If (the NBA is) to distribute billions and billions, then maybe they might participate. If it’s to retain all the benefits for themselves, my guess is the rest of the world won’t participate.’ […] Lithuania’s coach Kestutis Kemzura loves a global basketball climate where he could lose to Nigeria in June, watch them lose to Team USA by 83 points and still somehow come so, so close to beating the Americans. The world keeps getting smaller. Kemzura says the gap keeps closing and he wants Lithuania to keep taking its best shot at the United States’ superstars. He wants to beat the best, wants to beat the USA and wants it on the biggest stage in the world: the Olympics. ‘We went to the qualification in Venezuela on the first of June, and some of our players came straight after they finished (professional) seasons,’ Kemzura said. ‘Of course (the Olympics) matters. We were fighting for this place. I don’t understand this idea of sending younger players, not sending our best to the Olympics. I do not understand it. If we leave everything on money, and money runs the show, where’s the sport? Where’s national team idea?'”

NBA folks — past and current — have helped out U.S. President Barack Obama by taking part fundraising events throughout the years, and as the 2012 election draws closer, some of the big guns are coming out in support of the Prez yet again. Michael Jordan (who has been notoriously apolitical throughout his basketball life) will headline a fundraiser for Obama later on this month. Per the AP: “The Obama campaign is planning a fundraising ‘shoot-around’ and dinner in New York on Aug. 22 featuring several NBA stars, including Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks, Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics, John Wall of the Washington Wizards and others. Jordan, who played for the Chicago Bulls, Obama’s favorite NBA team, and NBA Commissioner David Stern are co-hosting a $20,000-per person fundraising dinner with the president later in the day. […] The campaign is holding a ‘shoot-around’ with players at New York’s Chelsea Piers sports complex, including Anthony, Rondo, Wall, Paul Pierce, Kyrie Irving, Joe Johnson and former NBA centers Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning. WNBA stars Sheryl Swoopes and Dawn Staley are also participating in the event, which will cost $5,000 for a parent and child or two people to have a ‘shoot-around skills session’ with the players. A $250 donation provides an autograph session with the players. Obama’s campaign plans to raffle off the chance for grass-roots supporters to attend the events.”

On paper, they could have been the ’72 Soviets, ’04 Argentinians or ’06 Greeks.

Heading into the 1984 Olympics, the Italians’ talented, deep national team looked primed to invade Los Angeles and topple the host Americans in one of the biggest upsets in sports history.

These aerial Azzurri had already proven themselves giant killers by beating the Soviets in the previous Moscow Games. Since then, the U.S.S.R. had knocked off the U.S. in the World Championship tournament. Italy excelled at half-court or uptempo sets, and was much more experienced than the collegiate American squad, which featured North Carolina’s Michael Jordan, Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing and the first two Razorbacks selected for an Olympic basketball team: Joe Kleine and Alvin Robertson.

“American talent is the best in the world,” an editor of a popular Italian basketball weekly told Sports Illustrated in July 1984. “But their players are 20 years old against men who’ve played 80 games each year for 10 years. The U.S. player has taken maybe 5,000 shots in games in his life. The others have taken maybe 50,000.”

It appeared the world was catching up. And not just archnemesis U.S.S.R, which had beaten the U.S. for gold medals in ’72 and ’82. Puerto Rico, for instance, came within a point of upsetting the U.S. in a fast-paced early round game of the ’76 Olympics.

Some Americans pointed out the Olympic policy of pitting collegians against foreign pro players [deceptively listed as civil servants to technically qualify as amateurs] actually played in the youngins’ favor. The Americans only had one chance to play for gold, whereas these grizzled, chain-smoking Eurovets sometimes got four, even five shots. All those return trips could sap enthusiasm, the theory went, producing a mellow Miroslav here, a jaded Jonas there. Not so for the American college players who understood the rarity of moment, wrote Sports Illustrated‘s Alexander Wolff: “It’s their only opportunity to play together before going their separate ways to seek pro fortunes. They generate an enthusiasm, an authentic Olympic spirit.”

It also helped that the players brimmed with confidence. While coach Bobby Knight and staff actually paid attention to opponents’ names, their players didn’t. “And the arrogance of us in America, we thought we were the only ones who played basketball,” Kleine recalls with a laugh.

Ultimately, homecourt advantage, Knight’s coaching and transcendent talents like Jordan proved too much. The Americans steamrolled to gold in 1984, not even stopping to play Italy, which lost in the quarterfinals to Canada.

At the same time, the writing was already on the gym wall.

Insiders knew even then the world was catching up. Moreover, one European—a pro coach named Boris Stankovic—had already been working since the 1970s to include NBA players in the Olympics. These two trends came to a head in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when the Soviets beat the U.S. yet again, this time leaving bronze medals hanging from the downcast necks of collegians like David Robinson, Danny Manning and Dan Majerle. The nation’s pride was deeply wounded. “Anytime we lose it gets America’s attention,” says Kleine, an assistant coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “When we win in basketball, it’s business as usual but when we lose … that’s when it’s like, ‘How could they lose? Americans don’t lose in basketball.'”

Thus began the Dream Team era, which may end next week.

***

The first Dream Team, of course, got the ball rolling 20 years ago with a tour de force in Spain that stands as one of team sports’ most celebrated runs. It wasn’t merely the 40- and 50-point bludgeonings, however, that to this day thread the first pro American Olympians’ legacy through song lyrics, movie references and video game covers. It’s the way the squad’s combined on-court ability and off-court charisma won new legions of basketball fans, and ultimately NBA consumers, overseas. Headliners Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen had already shone plenty as individual stars; together, they produced wattage brighter than a Barcelona nightscape.

“It was absolute madness,” says Kleine, who played with Jordan and Pippen on the 1997-98 Bulls. He recalls tales of fans “outside the hotel all day and night. Three or four people deep, behind the barricades, just wanting to get a glimpse of them so bad. They had that kind of rock star, Beatles kind of thing going.”

Pau and Marc Gasol, then children, would have been among the local Spaniards transfixed by the Dream Teamers’ astounding athleticism and flashy play. These brothers, along with fellow non-American NBA stars Dirk Nowitzki, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, have all said the Dream Team inspired them as young players. Now the Gasols are a major reason Spain is expected to challenge the U.S. for gold in the Olympic basketball tournament that began July 29.

To win, Spain has the unenviable task of beating a U.S. team loaded with experienced superstars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Durant. It won’t be easy, but the Spanish have a much better chance than any of the original Dream Team’s opponents. Just as other nations closed the gap on American collegians before 1988, so have international players closed the gap on American NBAers since 1992. This was never more apparent than in 2002-2006, when the U.S. failed to finish higher than third place in two World Championships and the ’04 Athens Olympics.

Just like after 1988, the American powers-that-be righted the ship. This time, it wasn’t a matter of importing better players from the NBA for a single summer. Instead, it was more about strategically selecting from already available players, then convincing them to commit to a few summers for the sake of program continuity, all under the aegis of a long-term coaching staff.

Overall, this strategy has worked. The senior U.S. men’s team hasn’t lost a tournament since 2006. Its mega-millionaire players don’t grumble much about receiving relative pittances for their national team play. They say appropriate, patriotic things about playing for national pride and not taking the opportunity for granted. The last few years, in fact, it seemed USA Basketball had pretty much nailed this whole obliterate-the-rest-of-the-world-with-a-marketable-smile-on-your-face thing. The whole enterprise seemed to hum on all cylinders.

Then NBA Commissioner David Stern had to open his big mouth.

***

Before getting into why Kobe called what came out of Stern’s mouth “stupid,” let me first say this: America has never had a more cosmopolitan commish. The first time my Turkish father ran into Stern, he was shopping in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. Stern gave my rug salesman father his business card and, hearing about my NBA interest, told him to get in touch. A few nights later, in an Istanbul arena, we did, wending our way through a courtside security detail during halftime of the first game pitting an NBA and Turkish pro team.

Broadly smiling, Stern emerged from the bowels of Abdi Ipekci arena, shook my hand and before long was asking about the language classes I’d been taking. He even wanted me to throw a few Turkish expressions his way.

In all his travels, Stern keeps noticing one thing in a never-ending quest to make basketball the world’s biggest sport: It’s not yet the biggest sport. Not by a long shot, actually. But Stern’s smart, and he realizes the world’s biggest soccer leagues and organizations have developed business tactics that could also benefit the NBA. In the same way the NBA accelerated the global popularization of basketball by exporting players, coaches and merchandise, so does Stern want to import soccer business strategies to further spread his league’s influence while padding its bottom line.

As inevitable as a Ginobili Euro step or Nowitzki one-footed fadeaway, this process has already begun.

It started in January when the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) changed the name of the World Championship to FIBA World Cup. That name squares nicely with other premier international tournaments: the Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup and, of course, the cash cow mother of them all, the FIFA World Cup. The NBA got into the act two weeks ago by announcing it would allow advertisement patches on jerseys starting in fall 2013. Such a change could drop as much as $100 million into league coffers.

In this context, then, it shouldn’t surprise that Stern wants to copy soccer yet again. He has proposed limiting future senior Olympic men’s basketball teams primarily to players no older than 23 years old. That’s the rule in Olympic soccer, where 23-and-under teams compete with up to three exceptions for older players. Which means, most likely, this would be the last Olympics for the likes of LeBron James, Chris Paul and even first-timers like Russell Westbrook and James Harden.

Why the proposed change? Not surprisingly, money. For one, NBA team owners profit from healthy superstars. They fear season-ending injuries during Olympic games or practices. But this happens in offseason workouts and pickup games, too. More importantly, the status quo has the International Olympic Committee, not the owners, controlling the Games’ financial spigot. The owners “don’t get money from the Olympics, so the Olympics isn’t a big deal to them,” Kleine says.

If the 12-team Olympics were no longer the world’s premier basketball tournament, as is the case in soccer, then the NBA could better capitalize on the fame of its best assets. And so, Stern wants to amp up the prestige of the FIBA World Cup by making it the one tournament open to all NBA superstars. It’s likely the FIBA World Cup, already at 24 teams, would expand to an even more lucrative 32 teams, according to SheridanHoops.com. Stern and FIBA chief Patrick Baumann will discuss this development after the Olympics. Expect the NBA to strike an agreement with FIBA providing itself with a healthy revenue stream.

By and large, players seem to despise any attempts to downgrade the Olympics. “It’s a stupid idea,” Bryant told reporters in mid July. “It should be a [player’s] choice.”

Expect foreign players to hate this idea even more. Think about it: Americans, even in an under-23 Olympics world, should still win most gold medals. Not so for international players who will likely end Olympic careers on a frustrating, losing note.

Will Neighbour, a standout basketball player for UALR, assumed he’d have multiple shots to make the senior British national team. A 22-year-old veteran of a few junior teams, he had high hopes of representing his nation this summer in front of a home crowd at London. A shoulder injury and surgery sidelined him from these Games, though, and Stern’s proposal wouldn’t help any future attempts. “Personally, I would not like it at all, because that’s my dream to play in the Olympics,” says Neighbour. “I came closer this year, and then my shoulder happened, so my eyes are already set on 2016. And it would just make everything so much harder for me to make that team.

“I think every country should just give the best that they have and I think that’s why they allowed professionals to play in the Olympics in the first place.”

The prospects don’t look good for guys like Neighbour. What Stern and his inner circle want, Stern et al. tend to get. Even if that happens, though, could this new-fangled FIBA World Cup actually eclipse the Olympics in popularity and prestige, like the FIFA World Cup has in soccer?

Don’t bet on it, says Kleine. “It’s won’t overtake the Olympics. I think the Olympics are too steeped in tradition. It’s just such big deal.”

That may be true. But for an ambitious multinational corporation like the National Basketball Association, profit is a much bigger deal than patriotism.

This article was originally published in SYNC magazine. Listen to the 89.1 FM version of this story at kuar.org.

With Team USA competing for the Gold medal in the Olympics, one issue that hangs over the London Games like a black cloud is the push from the NBA to limit the participation of its star players going forward.

USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo is advocating for NBAers to be able to compete in future Olympics, regardless of age.

Per KTAR:

“The game comes first, money comes second,” he said at a team practice. “I’m not quite sure that’s true for all owners in sports.” Colangelo said lowering the age limit would deny NBA stars an opportunity to play for their country. For example, guard James Harden, a former Arizona State University star, would not have made this year’s team because of the age rule. “I don’t think that rule should be put into (effect),” Harden said. “That would mean that I couldn’t come back. The majority of the guys that play, the faces of the NBA, are 26 (or) 27, so that means they wouldn’t be allowed to play (either). Ultimately, the decision isn’t Colangelo’s. But he is lobbying owners not to impose the rule. He said players want to decide whether or not to play for the Olympic team.

“They love it,” Colangelo said. “I mean, it’s pretty hard to argue with something as simple as supporting the flag and representing your country.” […] Colangelo brought his expertise to Team USA at the request of Stern after the 2004 Athens Olympics, which ended with an embarrassing bronze medal behind Argentina and Italy. “At the time, the commissioner said he thought I was the only person who had the credibility and the respect of the players and people around the world because of my experience and because of my resume,” he said.

This will be a tough fight for NBA players and Jerry Colangelo to win. Regardless of the age-limit proposal’s lack of popularity, the Commissioner and the owners are determined to implement this rule (and reap the financial rewards that would follow.) And we’ve all seen what happens when a battle takes place between players and ownership (see: NBA lockout.)

So, enjoy watching your favorite NBA stars take on the rest of the world in these Olympic Games. It might very well be the last time.

Whenever an update on the never-ending Dwightmare is posted here, SLAMonline readers leave all types of angry comments about being sick of the story (which is understandable — we’re sick of it, too.) But, according to NBA Commissioner David Stern, the Dwight Howard/Orlando Magic trainwreck is something people can’t look away from, no matter how annoying it is. Per USA Today: “NBA Commissioner David Stern called out Orlando center Dwight Howard’s agent, Dan Fegan, as the primary unnamed source leaking details of a recent meeting between Howard and Magic executives. Asked what he thought of the Howard situation, which threatens to engulf another season for the Magic, Stern chided Fegan. ‘It’s very unique, especially if it’s driven by a quote source that happens to be Dwight’s agent,’ Stern said. ‘A source in the meeting. Oh, OK, who might that be?’ Does he think it could be new Magic general manager Rob Hennigan? ‘No, I don’t, and I don’t think it’s (Magic CEO) Alex Martins either,’ Stern said. […] Jab aside, Stern says he is comfortable with how Howard’s tumultuous situation is playing out. Howard wants out of Orlando, and the Magic are unwilling to trade him unless a deal yields what Hennigan wants as the Magic begin to rebuild: salary cap relief, young talent and draft picks. ‘To me, it is the soap opera our fans turn in for – the drama on the court and the drama off the court,’ Stern said. ‘When we cease to have a story popping up, we probably won’t exist. I think what it is, is that that’s the way we are. That’s the way it has been in baseball and the NFL and hockey and basketball. And frankly, it engages our fans, it engages our reporters, it engages our bloggers. It makes people happy, mad, sad. It’s just the life in sports.’”

There’s no rush when it comes to David Stern’s proposal to implement an age restriction of 23-and-younger for pros joining the US Olympic hoops team — one that has been highly-criticized and widely panned — according to the commish. Per USA Today: “USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said Thursday that the sooner he knows the age rule for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the better. NBA Commissioner David Stern, on the other hand, is in no hurry to reach a conclusion on whether this will be the last Olympics for NBA players of all ages or whether men’s players 23-and-under will compete in future Olympics. ‘Nothing is definitive,’ Stern said. ‘All we’re talking about is the issue, having taken stock 20 years after Barcelona. What is the best way to continue the growth of the game on a global basis?’ He said he is not influenced by Los Angeles Lakers guard and Olympian Kobe Bryant’s recent comment that going to a 23-and-under format for Olympic men’s basketball would be ‘stupid.’ ‘This is not an urgent issue,’ said Stern, the NBA’s commissioner since 1984. ‘This is just an opportunity to have an intelligent conversation with our friends at FIBA (international basketball’s governing body).'”

David Stern would like to cap the age of NBA players hooping in the Summer Olympics at 23. The idea hasn’t gained much traction among players, chief among them Kobe Bryant, who came out and flatly called the proposal “stupid”. From Reuters: “It’s a stupid idea, stupid,’ Bryant, 33, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of Team USA’s Olympic friendly against Britain on Thursday. ‘It should be a (player’s) choice.’ NBA team owners are understood to be concerned about the greater potential for injuries and fatigue suffered by the top players while they represent their national teams during the league’s off season. But Bryant, a five-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers and a member of the U.S. team that won gold at the 2008 Olympics, feels anything but the world’s best players is not acceptable when it comes to international competition. ‘The Olympics is really about putting the best athletes out there to compete against the best. That’s what it’s about, put the best out there,’ said Bryant. ‘From a basketball standpoint, (an age limit) would lessen the Olympics, absolutely.’ […] Bryant smiled when asked if he could understand owners looking out to protect players from injury while participating in competition outside of the NBA. ‘No, it’s to protect their investments,’ said Bryant. ‘When you look at guys who are injured here, they have treatment around the clock. We have the best training staff, we have the professional coaches who are here monitoring us. If our owners or NBA coaches want to contact us and see how we’re doing, they can easily come to practice, they can easily talk to the training staff – as opposed to guys disappearing for the summer and coming back overweight.’ […] ‘You see guys, when they come back from playing on a team like this, they go into the new (NBA) season with the ultimate confidence,’ said Chris Paul. ‘It’s better than being at home just working out and playing ball. You get to play against the best players in the world.'”

David Stern’s push to create a rule where no NBA player over the age of the 23 can represent the USA in the Olympics — to say nothing of the World Cup of Basketball proposal — is a very unpopular idea among current members of Team USA. Reports Sheridan Hoops: “Nitpickers would point out that making the Olympics worse in order to make the world championship better is a curious strategy. But, then again, the NBA could run a World Cup and benefit financially. and when sports is driven by greed rather than what is best for the sport or its fans, anything is possible. Count Jerry Colangelo, managing director of the U.S. national team, as one opposed to the change. Colangelo said he has had a discussion with Stern and told him to step carefully. ‘Before any final decision is made, it’s important that all the people understand what the ramifications are – to the current group of players, to the future group of players – what really are the limitations as a result?’ Colangelo said. ‘I think that discussion should be a long, thorough discussion before anyone goes off half cocked. That’s my opinion and I shared that with David.’ If Stern’s plan was currently in effect, the U.S. team would not have Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Deron Williams, Chris Paul or Andre Iguodala on the roster. ‘There should not be an age limit for the Olympics,’ said Chandler, who pointed out that swimmer Dara Torres competed in the 2008 Olympics at age 41. ‘We wouldn’t have been able to watch her. And we wouldn’t have been able to watch some of the heroic things we have happened over the years. So I’m very against it.’ Five current Team USA players are 23 or younger – Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin and James Harden. The rule would not impact them now, but it would in four years. Each of the players has the goal to compete in multiple Olympics. ‘You only have very few chances to represent your country,’ Love said, ‘so I feel that it comes along every four years and I feel like if you have the chance to do it and you want to make that step and you’re good enough to make the team and represent your country, I think you might as well be able to do it, even when you are older.'”

We’ve heard David Stern and some NBA owners (most notably, Mark Cuban) propose major changes to the participation of high-level NBA talent in the Olympic Games. According to Yahoo! Sports, this is largely based on what most things in this world are: money. And lots of it. The NBA and FIBA are reportedly exploring an idea that’s been branded as the “World Cup of Basketball”: “For months, the NBA has been discussing an end to the Olympic basketball Dream Team movement and delivering its superstars to a proposed rebranding of the world championships called ‘The World Cup of Basketball.’ For the use of its most marketable players, the league office and many NBA owners are determined to create a financial partnership with FIBA for a World Cup that would allow the NBA to significantly share in the windfall of revenues. ‘The owners would be a lot more comfortable letting star players play internationally if they’re sharing in the revenue,’ one league said As constituted now, the International Olympic Committee has control of the Olympic basketball tournament and most of the revenue it generates. Stern says the NBA will take time to deliberate how it will proceed in the future, but multiple league and international sources insist there’s little chance the league will ever send its best players to the Summer Olympics beyond the 2012 London Games. The NBA has long wanted to best protect its financial investments in players by better controlling the medical and training staffs used in international competition. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said he isn’t aware of the NBA’s specific intentions in possibly moving its star players to the rebranded World Cup, but says he has lobbied for much more complete control of the tournament. He sees no reason to partner with FIBA or anyone else. He wants the NBA to own, operate and profit on a global tournament using the league’s stars. ‘The question is: Why would we partner with a current tournament rather than start our own?’ Cuban said. ‘If done correctly, it can be NBA-owned and operated and have the potential to be just as large as the World Cup of soccer. That is a product, in my opinion, we want to own, not share. I don’t know what the NBA plan is, but the above is what I will be pushing for.’”

NBA commissioner David Stern’s crusade against the disease that is flopping is beginning to take shape, and has him suggesting retroactive penalties on players who get away with flops. Per the AP: “The NBA commissioner believes too many players are deceiving referees into calling fouls by falling down, or flopping. So he and the league’s newly reformed competition committee met Monday for a discussion about how it can be prevented. One option, Stern said, is a ‘postgame analysis’ in which a player could be penalized if it was determined he flopped. The league retroactively upgrades or downgrades flagrant fouls after review, and along those lines he said that perhaps a player could receive a message from New York saying: ‘Greetings from the league office. You have been assigned flopper status.’ ‘No, I’m joking, but something like that,’ Stern said. ‘That sort of lets people know that it’s not enough to say `it’s all part of the game.’ […] Any rules changes they recommend would have to be approved by the league’s Board of Governors, set for its next meeting in July. Stern hopes by then to have a policy to address flopping, which bothers him because he feels it tricks the referees. He said there’s a ‘broad array of issues’ to look at that can let players know the practice is to be discouraged. ‘If you continue to do this, you may you have to suffer some consequences,’ he said. ‘What those exactly should be and what the progression is is to be decided, because … we just want to put a stake in the ground that says this is not something that we want to be part of our game, without coming down with a sledgehammer but just doing it in a minimalist way to begin stamping it out. And I think there are ways we can do that and we’ll have to wait and see exactly what we come up with.'”

NBA commissioner David Stern lost his composure during a sports radio interview yesterday, when the host asked him for his thoughts on the never-ending allegations that the NBA Draft Lottery is fixed. From USA Today and the Times Union: “Jim Rome asked if the NBA draft lottery was fixed, given the league-owned New Orleans Hornets got the first pick. Stern first said, ‘No, shame on you for asking.’ Then, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife yet?’ The few minutes after the remark were spent debating the legitimacy of Rome’s question and the interview ended with Stern saying ‘I have to go call someone important now. Stephen A. Smith is up next.’ Asked for a comment, NBA spokesman Mike Bass late Wednesday said of Stern’s second reply, ‘What it is is a classic unanswerable question, same as the one the Commissioner was asked.’ […] ‘I was shocked,’ Rome said. ‘I really was stunned. He and I have a long history. I’ve interviewed him dozens of times probably, on radio and TV over the years. Sometimes the interviews are a little more contentious than others, depending on the line of questioning and the mood he’s in. When I asked that question, I did not in any way expect that response. To be honest, I thought it was a softball question. It would have been an easy opportunity for him to address something that’s out there and that he would just summarily dismiss it out of hand. I had no idea he would get that upset. I was shocked by it.’ […] ‘A lot of people don’t know that phrase, so they thought it was extremely out of line,’ said Rome, who is married with two sons. ‘I understood it, I knew where he was going with it. I thought it was inappropriate because, what it is, it’s a rhetorical device to insinuate I asked him a loaded question. I don’t think my question to him was loaded. I thought it was a very simple and very direct question.'”

While the residents of Oklahoma City rejoice in postseason success and Finals anticipation, the team that drafted Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook is still on a mission to bring the NBA back to the Emerald City. The Seattle Times has the details: “Mayor Mike McGinn met with NBA Commissioner David Stern in New York City on Monday to tell him Seattle wants to bring back professional basketball. ‘We met so the mayor could show his commitment to bringing an NBA team back to Seattle,’ wrote McGinn spokesman Aaron Pickus in an email. The visit came as a surprise to local representatives of Chris Hansen, the San Francisco hedge-fund manager who is proposing to spend up to $800 million to partially finance a new arena and buy an NBA team. Rollin Fatland, a spokesman for Hansen, said he didn’t know anything about the meeting. ‘What the hell is that about?’ Fatland said, adding that the mayor may have contacted others about the meeting. ‘I’m not aware that anyone asked him to do it.’ The Seattle City Council and Metropolitan King County Council are currently considering a proposal to build a nearly $500 million state-of-the art sports and entertainment venue in the Sodo neighborhood. The public contribution would be capped at $200 million.”

We’ve known for quite some time now that NBA Commissioner David Stern is pushing for certain rule changes. Stern crystallized what he’s looking for last night, in a chat with reporters. Per the AP: “David Stern wants to take a closer look at flopping and referees to be able to take a second look at all flagrant fouls. And the NBA commissioner isn’t sure he wants to see his veteran players in the Olympics anymore. Stern and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday the league is committed to sending top players to the Olympics only through London, and then wants to look into saving them just for the world basketball championship and having the Olympics reserved for those 23 and under, as soccer does. That discussion will happen later with FIBA, basketball’s world governing body. First, Stern has some changes he wants to talk over with the recently changed Competition Committee. He has previously urged a crackdown on flopping, the art of players falling down to make officials believe they were fouled. He called for a ‘not instant, but thorough review.’ […] ‘I think we are going to approach something that many tell me is impossible, which is deciding whether someone was acting or was actually, and thereby tending, intending to trick the fans, and the referees; or, whether there was a legitimate reason for that particular person to go sprawling,’ Stern said. ‘And then the question is, what to do in that case, and that’s the kind of discussion that I look forward to having with the committee.'”

According to the NY Daily News, NBA Commissioner David Stern strong-armed into existence the NBA’s newly-formed competition committee, and he wants them to take a long, hard look at changing the rules as they pertain to goaltending and those pesky floppers: “From ordering lockouts to scheduling Christmas Day games to determining who has power and who doesn’t, nothing of consequence in the NBA ever happens without David Stern calling the shots. On that last front, the league’s 30 general managers lost a good deal of power this past week when the NBA announced that a new ‘ompetition committee’ that includes select owners, GMs and coaches will decide all future rules changes, along with other potential modifications to the game. reviously, and for what seems like the last 25 years, rules changes were the exclusive domain of the league’s general managers. Owners and coaches were not a part of the process. Unless the GMs wanted to make a change, it never got to a vote. But in recent years, that system had not been working for Stern. So he ordered the change. […] ‘Stern is looking for more control,’ said a source. ‘He hasn’t been able to get some things done because he’s had to deal with 30 general managers and he can’t control them. But now he has his people on the committee.’ Stern’s new committee is expected to work on two major rules changes right away: Adopting the international rule for goaltending, meaning that balls could be legally knocked off the rim or backboard that now would result in a basket; and penalizing ‘floppers.’ Stern has talked to GMs in the past about changing the goaltending rule, but never got anywhere. But now he’ll have a more receptive group to consider what would be a dramatic change in the defensive rules.”

The people who work closest with David Stern on a daily basis have already flatly rejected the notion of a shorter NBA regular season schedule becoming the norm for the League, but the commissioner continues to dangle that unrealistic carrot. From CBS Sports: “NBA commissioner David Stern said Tuesday he would ‘certainly look at’ making a shortened regular season beginning Christmas Day a permanent fixture, while acknowledging the financial limitations of the idea. ‘We’re going to certainly look at it and raise the issue with the owners,’ Stern said. ‘The reason you don’t make it a shorter year is because of the infrastructure that’s been built. You have all of the buildings that have been selling an 82-game schedule. You have these local TV deals. You have these network TV deals. So, we’d have to negotiate with our players to take 20 percent less every year on the salaries that they’re getting. That is a problem.’ […] Two serious impediments exist. First, whether or not the league will ever be able to prove whether the compressed schedule — with, on average, two more games per team per month — was a contributing factor to the rash of playoff injuries, player safety has to be a paramount consideration. It’s unclear whether serious knee injuries to Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis were directly related to the schedule, but there isn’t a player, coach or support staff member who would willingly sign up to do that again. Second, as Stern said, player salaries and arena leases are based on 82-game schedules. Whatever you think of a shorter schedule, it would be necessary to renegotiate on both fronts. And the last thing the NBA needs after that miserable, 149-day lockout is more negotiation. It’s impractical, too.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern isn’t satisfied with just having an age limit in his League, he wants one in international competition as well (but with a twist.) Per EOB: “Speaking on ESPN Radio, Stern said he would be in favor of making a new age restriction on who can participate in the basketball tournament. ‘My own view is that post-London, we should be thinking about even what soccer does and make it 23 and under,’ Stern said. Stern said the league doesn’t try and encourage players to play though. ‘No, we stay out of it,’ he said. ‘The problem is that it’s so [ingrained] into the international players that they just always play. And so we were contemplating, even back in the day when we thought we maybe wouldn’t allow NBA players to go, that would have deprived us of Yao Ming because the Chinese government never would have let him come to play (in the NBA). And the international players were going anyway. So then it would apply only to American players? So we found ourselves in a bit of an interesting dilemma with the whole thing.’ Stern made sure to say that the United States’ international dominance isn’t what makes him feel that way saying he doesn’t have ‘a problem with Americans losing in the Olympics. … We don’t have to win everything for it to be great.’”

With the rash of injuries to major NBA stars of late, David Stern faced the press and shot down the notion that they have anything to do with the lockout and resulting hectic game schedule. Per ESPN and NBA.com: “NBA commissioner David Stern said Monday that he doesn’t believe Derrick Rose’s ACL tear, or the other major injuries plaguing the league this season, had anything to do with a schedule condensed by a lockout. ‘I don’t think it’s related at all. Zero,’ Stern said. Some players have speculated that a season that was reduced from 82 games to 66 with one day off between the regular season and playoffs played a role. ‘When anything happens, that’s going to happen,’ Stern said of people trying to find a cause-and-effect relationship. ‘But I was just reading something from a doctor who said that he just doesn’t believe it. There’s no evidence that the wear and tear … and on Derrick it’s kind of interesting, it was horrible to watch, but he was out. He missed 27 games earlier this year, so he only played in 40 of those games that we had in this quote condensed schedule. So what’s your suggestion?’ […] ‘What we’re trying to do is get facts and so we asked doctors. Derrick Rose actually missed 27 games. But far be it for me to ask (the basketball pundits) to have some facts to support anything. It’s really shocking to me. I searched (ESPN’s NBA show) for a fact. All we got were opinions. I think we’ve averaged about five ACLs a year. Over this past weekend we had two. We’re not looking to average it out, believe me. Facts would be good, though. Information will free you. And I wish our broadcasters would use it … We care deeply about the health of our players,’ Stern said.”

Word on Rajon Rondo’s possible suspension for Game 2 of the Boston Celtics/Atlanta Hawks first round series has yet to come down, but if David Stern’s comments today should serve as any indication, you probably shouldn’t expect the star point guard to suit up tomorrow night. From ESPN: “Rondo did not make himself available to reporters before the team’s practice Monday on the campus of Georgia Tech, but the team seemed resigned to the likelihood that he will be suspended for Tuesday’s Game 2. ‘Rondo talked to league security this morning and hopefully we’ll know sooner than later, that’s the one thing we would always like,’ said [Doc] Rivers. ‘We’ll find out and we’ll be ready to play basketball when they tip it off tomorrow.’ […] Earlier in the day, NBA commissioner David Stern would not comment on potential discipline for Rondo but left little doubt how he felt about the incident. ‘I don’t want to pre-judge on what the recommendation is going to be,’ Stern said. ‘But as a fan, he obviously bumped him. And you know what happens with respect to that. … We have a hard and fast rule. Unless somebody trips you and sends you into him, nobody touches a referee. That’s the proposition.'”

David Stern offered NBA fans and media an explanation as to how he arrived at the decision to suspend Metta World Peace 7 games for elbowing James Harden in the head. From the NY Daily News: “World Peace’s unprovoked attack on Oklahoma City’s James Harden on Sunday in a nationally-televised game was ‘reckless and dangerous,’ in Stern’s view. […] ‘We knew that seven (games) at this time of year was even more severe than it would have been in the regular-season,’ he said on his annual pre-playoff conference call. ‘It’s only one game lost in the regular-season, but he’s out for most, if not all, of the first round. That did factor in. It does take into the account the fact that the perpetrator is who he is and has the record he has and it called for, in our view, a very stiff penalty.’ […] ‘My job is decide … what is justice here and what is fairness here,’ Stern said. ‘And I came up with seven. Seven seemed to be about the right number, with full knowledge that six or eight could be justified.'”

In its relentless pursuit of international fan and corporate support, the NBA will have several exhibition games next season take place all over the globe. Per the AP: “[NBA Commissioner] David Stern revealed the sites of next season’s overseas exhibition games: Berlin; Istanbul; Barcelona, Spain; and Milan in Europe; and Shanghai and Beijing in China. Boston and Dallas are expected to play two games apiece in Europe. […] International expansion may be ‘inevitable’ but not anytime soon.”

Coach K used a sports radio appearance to rail against the current relationship between the NBA and college hoops. From The Sports Animal in Oklahoma City (via SRI): “First of all college basketball doesn’t control college basketball. The NBA controls college basketball. They are the ones along with the players union that sets the rule. College basketball just reacts to what the NBA does to include the early entry date. College basketball put out April 10th. Well that date doesn’t mean anything. April 29th is when guys have a chance to put their names in the NBA draft. I think one of the main things that has to happen is college basketball has to have a relationship with the NBA. There should be someone in charge of college basketball who on a day-to-day basis sets an agenda for our great sport. We don’t have anything like that. As a resolve we don’t have a voice with the NBA or the players union and that’s just kind of sad.’ Do you continue to go after superstar players who could be one-and-done players? Do you go harder after players that may stay 2-3 years as oppose to the superstar? ‘Yeah we can’t go after every one-and-done guy because a lot of the guys and they are great players and great kids, but school isn’t as important. A lot of those guys a number of years ago didn’t have to go to college. Dwight Howard. Kobe Bryant. LeBron James. Kids are…it’s not even going one year. They are going to spend maybe six-seven months. Sometimes…we have a great school, but it’s not as attractive as going someplace else, so we have to be careful with who we get involved with because it could be a monumental waste of time for us.’”

It’s not just the city of Sacramento’s political leaders that are fed up with the Maloofs – who continue to wrangle over the increasingly contentious new arena deal — but the business folks aren’t happy with them either. Reports the Sac Bee: “A group of 25 Sacramento business people will send a letter to the NBA today asking it to consider new ownership for the Sacramento Kings. They’re firing off their letter on the same day that the Maloofs, who own the Kings, plan to appear before the league’s board of governors to argue that the NBA’s deal with the city to build a new arena needs more negotiating. NBA Commissioner David Stern, who helped broker the tentative deal with the city, is also expected to brief the league owners today on the status of the deal. A spokesman for the Sacramento business group, Gregory Hayes, a member of Mayor Kevin Johnson’s Think Big Sacramento organization, said it will hold a news conference this morning near the site of the proposed arena in the downtown railyard. Hayes said his group includes developers, restaurant owners and downtown business owners. He declined to offer further details, other than saying in a press statement that the group will express its position on the future ownership of the team. But a source who declined to speak publicly before the news conference said the group intends to issue a letter saying it appreciates what the Maloof family has done with the team but that, to make an arena deal happen, the group believes it is best to have new owners with a long-term commitment to Sacramento. NBA spokesman Mike Bass said the league hasn’t seen the letter and can’t comment on it. A spokesman for the Kings, Eric Rose, declined to comment directly about the group but said the Kings owners are committed to making a deal in Sacramento and do not intend to sell. ‘The Kings’ position has not changed,’ Rose said. ‘They desire to stay in Sacramento and are working diligently toward that end. And the Kings are not for sale.'”

NBA Commissioner David Stern continues to be pleasantly surprised by how well the League has emerged from the lockout, and Stern can hardly contain his excitement about the state of things. From 1320 KFAN in Salt Lake City (via SRI): “What the reaction has been from fans about the NBA season so far: ‘The truth is it has been great. The five games on Christmas Day, not the most popular in some quarters, some communities, and with some coaches, but was a way to say we we’re back and it was like stark and sparkling and we’re up in viewing because all of our network partners were up a wee bit in attendance over a very good year last year. We’re up in social media, sales of merchandise, and everything is absolutely and unbelievably good. Maybe we don’t deserve it and I would accept that. It is not dawning on everybody that this was a good deal. For their part, the players unlike coming out of the lockout in hockey, they didn’t give up anything in their existing contracts, they didn’t have to suffer givebacks of their existing contracts, but on the other hand going forward we’re going to save 12 percent per year on our largest cost, the player services. We’re going to have four year contracts if you want to sign someone else’s free agent. I saw today Joey Votto signed a ten year deal and will be 40 when it’s over and the NBA can be a four-year deal or five if it’s your own player and then when that is over, if the guy is performing that’s what we call aligning pay and performance so that is really good. The luxury tax is going up and the teams that choose to be there are going to feel it considerably and I think they’re going to evaluate their activities because if you’re 30 million above the tax you’re going to pay 70 million, it’s going to be 100 million player for a 30 million dollar player, it’s not happening.’ How much longer he plans on being the NBA Commissioner: ‘Well I’m not going to announce my retirement here. I don’t know. I’ve said it’s not going to be six years, that’s the parameters. (Host: Still having fun?) Oh I love it. It’s actually a great deal of fun. Last week I was in Phoenix, I was in Colorado, this week I’m here, next week we have owner’s meetings, I’m going to go see Bird and Magic opening night on Broadway the night before the owners meeting, what am I nuts? Everything that happens is fun. I have the best job in the world. Next February will be 29 years so we’ll see. I’d like to think along the way I’ve gotten so many great colleagues in the NBA that eventually should have the opportunity to show their stuff as a group. It’s not tomorrow, it’s not soon, but it’s not eternity either.'”

David Stern and Mark Cuban haven’t agreed on very much over the years, but if there’s one subject they’re united on, it’s the NBA’s controversial age limit. Both men want it raised. From the Dallas Morning News: “NBA commissioner David Stern said on Tuesday that he would like to require players to be at least 20, and/or two years out of high school, before they can be drafted. The current rule only requires draftees to be 19 and a year out of high school. […] Mark Cuban says he agrees with Stern, except that Cuban would like to take it a step further and require draftees to wait until they have been out of high school for three years. ‘It’s not even so much about lottery busts,’ Cuban said. ‘It’s about kids’ lives that we’re ruining. Even if you’re a first-round pick and you have three years of guaranteed money, or two years now of guaranteed money, then what? Because if you’re a bust and it turns out you just can’t play in the NBA, your ‘rocks for jocks’ one year of schooling isn’t going to get you far. I just don’t think it takes into consideration the kids enough. Obviously, I think there’s significant benefit for the NBA. It’s not my decision to make, but that’s my opinion on it. The NBA and the Players’ Association had an opportunity to amend the rule during last year’s contentious collective bargaining negotiations. Instead, the sides mostly bickered about how to split revenue, although the Players Association did agree to form a committee to discuss potential changes. The committee, which has only been loosely formed at this point, would likely consist of some owners, NBA Players Association reps and NCAA officials. The collective bargaining agreement that was signed in December is for six years, so in order to change the eligibility requirement all sides would have to agree to amend the current CBA. Stern points out that the NFL requires draftees to be out of high school at least three years. He also notes that the NFL is rarely is criticized for having the rule. Stern and Cuban aren’t often on the same side of an issue, but in this case Cuban shares the commissioner’s frustration that the eligibility issue wasn’t addressed during CBA negotiations. […] ‘I just think there’s a lot more kids that get ruined coming out early or going to school trying to be developed to come out early than actually make it. For every Kobe (Bryant) or (Kevin) Garnett or Carmelo (Anthony), there’s 100 Lenny Cooke’s,’ Cuban said. ‘I think then we just put them in the D-League for three years and then they become draft-eligible with their class,’ Cuban said. ‘They could go to Europe if they want, like Brandon Jennings. That’d be fine. There is nothing that I would like better than to throw our problems on FIBA. Then we’d get some of our money’s worth with them.’”

In a pre-game media session last night, the Commish said the League is negotiating with three groups interested in purchasing the Hornets and might be on the verge of finalizing the sale by next week’s Board of Governors meeting. Per the AP: “Commissioner David Stern said Wednesday night that the NBA is close to finalizing a deal to keep the Hornets in New Orleans with a very favorable lease, important capital improvements, intense tax benefits and a new television deal. Stern made the comments before Utah’s game against Phoenix. He’s in Salt Lake City for a luncheon that in part will honor late Jazz owner Larry H. Miller. Stern prefaced his comments by telling a joke, saying “soon” when asked about the Hornets’ deal. But he said the league was in intense negotiations with three groups. He was hopeful he could tell team owners at a meeting next week that the deal was done, close or that he was on the verge of a deal.”

Mayor KJ is not impressed with the Maloofs’ latest antics, which nearly derailed the new arena deal for the Sacramento Kings, before the NBA stepped in. Things have turned ugly between the Kings and the city of Sacramento, and Johnson was highly critical of the Kings’ owners. From the Sac Bee: “Mayor Kevin Johnson lashed out at the Maloof family [Tuesday], calling their statements that the family never agreed to pay for pre-development costs of a new arena ‘disingenuous.’ Hours before the City Council is expected to approve the start of crucial pre-development work on the $391 million arena, the mayor accused the Maloofs of ‘tactics and antics that are not becoming of a true partnership.’ ‘We as a city can’t be jerked around,’ he said. ‘We can’t keep having this issue flare up.’ Johnson then indicated he wants the issue resolved by next week. The NBA team owners will meet in New York next week, when league Commissioner David Stern is expected to raise the matter of the Maloofs’ pre-development contribution. Asked if the city would seek new ownership for the team should the Maloofs continue to balk in New York, the mayor said, ‘We’re not going to be a city that sits on its hands.’ ‘Do we need to look at contingency plans? Absolutely,’ he said. While the mayor would not elaborate, billionaire Ron Burkle has expressed interest in purchasing the Kings. The Maloofs, however, have insisted they have no intention of selling.’ Maloof spokesman Eric Rose issued a statement Tuesday: ‘As we have said numerous times, the Kings long-standing position has been that the team would be a tenant in an arena owned by the city and managed by AEG. Pre-development costs are not the responsibility of the tenant. Moreover, the City had asked the Kings to reimburse AEG for their contribution and we find that extremely unfair. We do not understand how the city and the Mayor could claim that are unaware of our position. The Kings commitment to the arena construction has not changed. We do not understand Mayor Johnson’s frustration and instead of projecting, we hope that the Mayor and city leaders will address the various issues that we have brought to their attention. We need the City to demonstrate to us that they can meet their own timeline of having a new arena built in time for the 2015 basketball season.’ In a letter to Sacramento city officials Monday, however, an attorney for the Maloofs said the team owners have serious doubts whether the city can succeed in getting a downtown arena built by September 2015, the opening date the NBA has said it wants.”

]]>http://www.slamonline.com/nba/sacramento-mayor-kevin-johnson-called-out-%e2%80%98disingenuous%e2%80%99-kings-owners/feed/12David Stern Wants to Raise the NBA’s Age Limit By a Year to 20http://www.slamonline.com/nba/david-stern-wants-to-raise-the-nbas-age-limit-by-a-year-to-20/
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/david-stern-wants-to-raise-the-nbas-age-limit-by-a-year-to-20/#commentsWed, 04 Apr 2012 13:40:20 +0000http://www.slamonline.com/online/?p=199727

NBA Commissioner David Stern is once again pushing for the League to raise its age limit from 19 to 20, but he knows it won’t be an easy sell. From Reuters: “The NBA currently mandates players must be 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft and at least one year removed from the graduation of their high school class. Stern pointed out that the so-called ‘one-and-done’ rule was an NBA-driven improvement from the days when high school standouts were drafted directly into the NBA, and that he would like to see the requirement taken further. ‘We have a committee that we’ve agreed to with the Players’ Association. We will be looking at the entire situation and probably with the (National Collegiate Athletic Association) input as well,’ Stern said. ‘We would love to add a year, but it’s not something that the Players Association has been willing to agree to.'”

Everyone was happy for the Sacramento Kings and their fans as a deal to keep the team in the city had been reached last month. However, were it not for the NBA, a last-minute financial hang up could have ruined the whole thing. Reports the Sac Bee: “In a wild day of behind the scenes activity, the Sacramento arena deal hit a major snag Thursday, then was rescued late in the day by National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern. Hours after the Kings’ team owners said they do not believe they should pay a $3.26 million share to help launch arena pre-development work, Stern told The Bee in a statement the league itself will step in to advance the initial payments. A source close to the negotiations but not authorized to speak said those payments total about $200,000. City officials said they need the funds, coupled with $6.5 million from the city and $3.26 million from AEG, the arena operator, for pre-development work to maintain a tight schedule for arena construction to start next year. In an email message, Stern acknowledged that the city and Kings had come to an impasse over the fee. ‘Following the agreement in principle … the parties have been attempting to reach agreement on funding the pre-development expenses that must be incurred in order for the project to move forward in a timely fashion,’ Stern said. ‘Those discussions have stalled, but I have advised Mayor Johnson that the NBA will advance pre-development expenses on behalf of the Kings pending our report to the NBA Board of Governors at its meeting on April 12-13.’ NBA officials did not say whether they would make further payments after that Board of Governors meeting. For now, though, the dramatic intervention by Stern – the second in a month’s time – appears to have resolved what could have been a deal-ending stalemate. During late February negotiations in Orlando, Stern helped pull the deal together by saying the NBA would assure the Maloofs could hold up their end of the bargain. Thursday’s events renewed bitter feelings that had surfaced last year between the city and the team owners when the Maloofs attempted to move the team to Anaheim. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson issued a terse statement late Thursday, pointedly challenging the Maloofs’ willingness to make a deal work in Sacramento.”

We already know that the NBA is seriously considering placing advertisements on jerseys, and it turns out that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is a big fan of the idea, as are some of his players. He views it as a no-brainer for a League that’s looking for new revenue streams. From the Star-Telegram: “The NBA Board of Governors will meet next month to discuss the possibility of adding advertising on jerseys. The idea has been met with much support from players and coaches. Meanwhile, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban also said it’s an idea whose time has come. ‘I’ve been trying to tell [the NBA],’ Cuban said. ‘If someone wants to give us $10 million, I’ll make it happen.’ Cuban believes NBA commissioner David Stern can be convinced that putting ads on jerseys is a viable concept for the league. ‘If the amount’s enough, David will jump up and down,’ Cuban said. ‘He’s not going to do it for $200,000 from Power Balance, but if somebody offers us $25 million, it’s done. We just have to work out the split with all the teams so everybody gets the benefits.’ Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki is accustomed to seeing ads on basketball jerseys in his native country of Germany. European basketball teams have worn ads on their jerseys for years. ‘I think we all understand the NBA, by now, is one of the biggest businesses in the world,’ Nowitzki said. ‘And if that’s a business decision, I don’t think it’s a bad one.’ Mavericks center Ian Mahinmi also saw more than his share of ads on jerseys in his native country of France. ‘For me, coming from overseas, I’m used to that,’ Mahinmi said. ‘The team I used to play for had a bunch of commercials on their jersey, so it’s nothing that I haven’t seen.’ Mahinmi, however, believes NBA jerseys should be considered sacred and shouldn’t be tampered with. ‘Ads on an NBA jersey, it’s got to be a little weird,’ Mahinmi said. ‘Growing up, you’re used to see the NBA and the city and the name of the team [on the jersey]. That’ll be something new and that’ll be a little unusual.'”

The NBA has emerged from the ugly lockout looking pretty good, and despite some sloppy play due to fatigue, lack of practice and the brutal schedule, David Stern is happy with where things are. The Commissioner addressed a number of topics during his chat with reporters in Phoenix last night. Per the AP: “NBA Commissioner David Stern said Tuesday it’s been a ‘surprisingly good’ season considering the late start and the potential for ill will among fans in the wake of the labor dispute that erased 16 games from the schedule. Stern also said there already are signs the collective bargaining agreement is having an impact, as teams make personnel decisions to cut payroll to avoid the stiffer luxury tax that the new deal creates. The commissioner said he expects a ‘robust discussion’ on adding goaltending to the areas that can be subject to video replay review by officials. […] There are issues to be resolved involving what replays would do to interrupt the court action, Stern said. ‘We probably have a dozen things now where we have instant replay, up from nothing,’ he said. ‘What we want to do is get it right without killing the flow of the game.’ Stern met with reporters before the game between the San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns. ‘It’s been a good year,’ he said, ‘surprisingly good for us in terms of all the metrics that we use — television viewership, attendance, merchandise sales, much better than I think we had a right to expect, but we’ll take it because it’s a lot of fun.’ He said that coming off a highly successful season helped, as did getting the season off to a big start with five Christmas day games, followed by some great story lines, particularly Jeremy Lin in New York. Stern said that the collective bargaining agreement ‘is actually beginning to work already in a big way.'”

Having held the title of NBA Commissioner since 1984, David Stern is planning to tell owners at their April Board of Governors that he will step down in two years, according to the the New York Daily News. Adam Silver is expected to become the next head of the NBA, with support of nearly 90 percent of ownership: “Insiders say that David Stern is planning to tell NBA owners at their April Board of Governors meeting that he’s good for two more seasons, and that he’ll step down as commissioner then. “At one point, he had talked about doing it for one more season, but it looks now like two more,” said a league source. League suits say there probably won’t even be a search conducted to find a successor and that deputy commissioner Adam Silver is a lock to succeed Stern, with one source saying Stern’s lieutenant has the backing of almost 90% of the owners. All he needs is a simple majority.”

Commissioner David Stern refuses to talk about the 6-11 elephant in the room.

After officially kicking off the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities in Orlando, Stern joked about Jeremy Lin, discussed the fate of New Orleans and Sacramento and pointed out that the Sunshine State actually “offers a lot of sunshine.”

But when it came to the obvious storyline that is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, Stern wanted to keep the focus off of the future of Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard and keep it on the weekend’s events and what they plan on doing with NBA Cares and NBA Fit.

“I have no thoughts at all,” he said. “My brain is empty on this subject. I’m not going to allow this line of questioning to ruin the fact that Orlando is a spectacular city, having a wonderful All-Star Weekend. So I don’t want to feed into a heightened sense of deprivation because Orlando is anything but deprived.”

Stern stood before a crowd of young elementary and middle school students draped in red, yellow, blue, green and black NBA Fit shirts on the Jam Session court talking about the 25 different community events planned, including the All-Star Day of Service promoting health and wellness.

“We have a responsibility to encourage fans of all ages to exercise, be fit and be healthy,” he said.

He said he just wanted the fans at Jam Session that didn’t don’t have access to the main events to enjoy the sights and sounds of the NBA, and keep their minds off the subject of Dwight’s future.

“We just want them to have a good time and appreciate our game. We’ve got great players and believe it or not, Dwight Howard is not the only player in the league,” Stern said. “I’m so old I remember when Wilt Chamberlin wanted to change teams. It wasn’t invented here.”

But Howard’s impending free agency and desire to leave the host city could be overshadowed by a New York Knick you may have heard of. Flying down to Orlando probably wasn’t on Jeremy Lin’s schedule just three weeks ago. But he’s gone from near obscurity to hosting his own All-Star party and playing in the Rising Stars Challenge—something Stern wasn’t fully supportive of.

“I was overruled by ‘Commissioner Kenny Smith,’” Stern joked. “He can do anything he wants to. Backed up by Charles and Shaq, you think I’m going to play around with that power structure?”

But he didn’t joke about the effect of Linsanity on the NBA (of course, there had to be a Lin pun thrown in).

“It’s fair to say no player has created the interest and frenzy in this short period of time in any sport that I’m aware of like Jeremy Lin has,” he said

Lin’s late addition to the Rising Stars Challenge is just one of the many events planned in Orlando for the weekend. Orlando is buzzing with celebrities, overflowing with parties and congested with traffic.

Mark Cuban blasted the NBA for its handling of the Chris Paul situation when he was still a New Orleans Hornet, expressing opinions about the deal that are shared by many, but rarely discussed so publically by NBA folks.

From the Star-Telegram:

“I don’t think it was about the Lakers, per se,” Cuban said Monday night. “I think it was just the way they did the deal, which was ridiculous. I don’t think it was about which team. I think it was the fact that, even with the Clippers, we just went through this whole (new collective bargaining agreement) and said the incumbent team still has the advantage and then the team the league owns (fades) out, and look how it’s worked out for them.”

The financially-strapped Hornets are being run by the NBA. And on Dec. 14 they eventually traded Paul and two first-round draft picks to the Los Angeles Clippers for Chris Kaman, Eric Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu. “Bad management gets you bad results,” Cuban said. “It’s hard to judge any trade until it’s done. It’s about the concepts involved and the integrity of what we went through for the CBA. That’s what it’s all about. (The NBA office) screwed the pooch either way. The whole idea about having most of these rules is that you’d have an advantage and wouldn’t have to trade people.”

The Chris Paul trade fiasco will continue to be a sore point for everyone but the Los Angeles Clippers and their fans, becoming increasingly worse as the team improves going forward.

Mark Cuban can probably expect a hefty fine from the League for speaking out of turn, but I don’t think he’ll mind too much.

Eric Gordon and the people who sign his paychecks in New Orleans couldn’t come to terms on a contract extension, reports the AP: “Guard Eric Gordon has turned down a four-year extension offer from the New Orleans Hornets, according to a person familiar with the situation.The person, who spoke to The Associated Press late Wednesday night on condition of anonymity because negotiations had not been discussed publicly, didn’t disclose the financial terms of New Orleans’ offer. Gordon, who turned 23 last month, came to New Orleans as a key component of a multiplayer trade shortly before the regular season that sent four-time All-Star point guard Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Clippers. Under NBA rules, the Hornets had until midnight Wednesday to come to terms with Gordon on an extension in order to prevent him from becoming a restricted free agent after this season. Because of his bruised right knee, Gordon has played in only two games this season, including New Orleans’ season opener, when he hit the winning shot to cap a 20-point outing in Phoenix. He bruised his right knee in that game and attempted a comeback on Jan. 4, when he scored 22 points in a loss to Philadelphia. Speaking shortly before the Hornets saw their season-long losing streak reach nine games with a 101-91 setback in Oklahoma City, Hornets coach Monty Williams said Gordon is expected to sit out at least three more weeks.”